BC Housing released its 2023 Report on Homeless Counts in BC last month.
Prepared by the Homelessness Services Association of British Columbia (HSABC) for BC Housing, the report summarizes the results of 27 Homeless Counts conducted by communities across British Columbia.
The Point-in-Time (PiT) counts were conducted between March 1st and May 3rd, 2023 and included 20 counts funded by the provincial government, five funded by the federal government and two independently funded counts which included Salt Spring Island.
It is well accepted that a PiT count represents a bare minimum of the number of homeless individuals as the survey is voluntary and confined to those individuals known to or findable by the surveyors.
The Salt Spring Island PiT count was 165 homeless individuals on Salt Spring in 2023, up from 143 in the previous count of 2021.
“Salt Spring Island has repeatedly shown the highest per capita population of homelessness in the communities participating in the PiT count,” said Rob Grant, Executive Director of Island Community Services. “We are not happy to announce that we have again come out in the lead around the province on this count.”
In 2023, the enumerated count per 1000 population for Salt Spring was the highest of all communities, counted at 14.2 per 1000 people with only a handful of the 27 being in the double digits.
Along with the highest representation of homeless individuals in a community, the number of unsheltered homeless individuals on Salt Spring represented 64% of the total homeless, in contrast with an average of 40% across all the communities included. Several were considerably higher than unsheltered proportions reflecting the complete absence of services in some areas.
With the incremental increases in funding over the last 5 years, the Emergency Shelter, previously operating as an extreme weather seasonal overnight service, is now run as a full-time year-round facility accommodating up to 30 homeless individuals. This, however, remains inadequate to serve the 165+ individuals, exacerbated by the lack of other complementary resources and programs on the island.
“With the numbers growing at this rate it seems clear that we need to do something different as a province,” said Grant.
