Ken Rafuse carries a Christmas tree to his home as a homeless man sleeps on the sidewalk outside a downtown business in Vancouver, on Monday December 10, 2012.
Photograph by: DARRYL DYCK , THE CANADIAN PRESS
Fears about the availability of shelter space for Vancouver’s homeless population persist, as the number of people living on the street doubled in 2012 compared with 2011.
The homeless are also facing fewer temporary shelter beds, with the reduction to 60 spaces from a 2011 peak of 240 at the low-barrier First United Church shelter earlier this year.
The city’s annual count of unsheltered homeless people — those with no physical shelter and sleeping on the street or in doorways, parkades, parks and beaches — increased to 306 in 2012 from 154 in 2011. The 24-hour count was carried out in March 2012.
“Many people who had been living in the (First United) shelter were forced to leave. With limited low-barrier shelter space, many were unable to find a suitable alternative,” said Brittany Graham, program coordinator for the Eastside Illicit Drinkers Group for Education, an advocacy group started this year.
“Many of those people affected by this are members of EIDGE. This past summer within two months, six members of EIDGE died. All of them had been impacted by the changes at First United,” Graham said in an email.
She is worried about a lack of space at low-barrier shelters — filled each night on a first-come, first-served basis with few restrictions around access, pets or identification — will end up harming homeless people, particularly in the Downtown Eastside, as colder weather approaches.
“A year ago this time, we had more than 200 bunk beds and we had additional mats laid out in the dining and gym area,” First United spokeswoman Zoe Bake-Paterson said. “I think our peak was about 300 in terms of people sleeping in the building.”
She said the cut in capacity was made for safety reasons and to adhere to the building’s fire code limits.
“Now we have more room set aside as a rejuvenating space … and I think it’s allowed more holistic care in terms of people coming through,” she said.
Vancouver has nearly 1,000 year-round shelter spaces, which provide temporary accommodation and support services like food, clothing, counselling and referrals to other services and longer-term housing.
The city also has 160 beds in four regular winter shelters, all of which were filled to capacity for several days last week when the temperature dropped below freezing.
When an extreme weather alert is issued, as on Dec. 19, another 237 beds in nine locations open up so homeless across the city can get respite from the cold.
Despite the apparent doubling of the number of unsheltered homeless people in 2012, the city’s overall homeless count — which includes those with temporary shelter and those without it — is relatively stable, moving from 1,715 in 2010 to 1,581 in 2011 to 1,602 in 2012.
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