Judy Graves, who’s been a homeless advocate for over 20 years, says there needs to be an even bigger push for permanent housing.

While homelessness still exists in Vancouver, there is hopeful news fewer people are on the street.

The city of Vancouver’s annual homeless count is underway, and already the numbers appear to be promising.

“Anecdotally, there are certainly far fewer people than there were a few years ago,” says Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson. “The question is – did we make headway compared to last year? Hopefully we did.”

This is the seventh year for the count.

Since 2008, the city says it’s seen a 62 percent decrease in homelessness.

The numbers have stabilized, and much of that is being attributed to the winter and HEAT shelters.

“The HEAT shelters have been instrumental in enabling people to get off the street, and then get connected to services and housing,” says Robertson. “I think we’ve seen a lot of success with people going from the street into the HEAT shelters, stabilizing and then being able to move into permanent housing.”

But those who work on the frontlines say more has to be done.

Judy Graves, who’s been a homeless advocate for over 20 years, says there needs to be an even bigger push for permanent housing.

“As long as we’ve got people sleeping in the street and I don’t have a place to house them, we do not have enough housing,” says Graves. “Vancouver is built for the rich, and it is not been built for the poor.”

Meantime, those who work at Vancouver’s Union Gospel Mission say the level of homelessness is down, but there’s still a huge problem with poverty and addiction.

“We see it every day,” says Bruce Curtiss with Union Gospel Mission. “Our numbers in the Cornerstone are definitely up. It is our drop in center. We are feeding full capacity every day, which is about 750 people. And we are turning away many.”

The city of Vancouver says it wants to end street homelessness by 2015 — an ambitious goal, but some say realistic.

“The province needs to do more, the federal government needs to do more, the city needs to do more, and every single one of us that’s got a dollar to contribute needs to do more,” says Graves.