Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and a group of 300 volunteers are scouring the streets of Vancouver this week to find out how many homeless people reside in the city.
The information gathered will be part of The Vancouver Homeless Count, a report that compares the trends and data of Vancouver's homeless.
"This count gives us the critical baseline information we need to update our Homeless Action Plan, which will guide the city's efforts to end street homelessness by 2015," he said to reporters Tuesday. "We need updated, detailed information to track our progress."
The methodology is based on regional homeless counts, which take place every three years. The next one is scheduled for 2011, but the City of Vancouver decided to do an early localized count for the first time.
In 2008, the regional count found 1,600 people in Vancouver were without a place to live.
This year's count has not been completed, but Robertson says initial findings show there are less homeless people on the street and more going to shelters.
He said up to 600 people are staying in shelters on any given night, but that could change once four temporary shelters shut down April 30. He hopes the people who stay in those shelters will not go back to life on the street.
"It's absolutely unfair to be putting people back out on the street when they're starting to recover," he said.
"[The count] won't answer all the questions that we have, but it'll give us a sense for who's outside, who's in the shelters, who's couch surfing and what the overall need of...housing is," Robertson said. "Ultimately housing is what we need to solve the problem."
Wendy Pederson of the Carnegie Community Action Project in the city's Downtown Eastside told ctvbc.ca that housing is a serious problem and the city isn't making it any better.
"One of the main problems of homelessness [is] gentrification," she said. "People are being forced to choose to live in a place...that's too expensive for them so they live outside."
She added, "They're not going to give up their food money for rent."
But Robertson said the city can't fix the housing problem alone.
"Between the federal and provincial government, they couldn't agree to housing that would help the homeless," Robertson said. "If Ottawa would show up at the table with significant funding to help our efforts on homelessness, it would make a big, big difference."
Sean Condon, executive director of local street newspaper Megaphone, told ctvbc.ca that The Vancouver Homeless Count is just a starting point for the city.
"We've seen a lot of Band-Aid solutions to homelessness, but there's no big push."
He said the count could be the boost the city needs.
"The more outreach, the more work done by the city for homelessness."
