A first-of-its-kind report on homelessness will give better information to help target provincial programs and services to improve supports for people experiencing homelessness and help prevent people from becoming homeless.
To access the Preventing and Reducing Homelessness Integrated Data Project, visit:
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/housing-tenancy/affordable-and-social-housing/homelessness/homelessness-cohort
To read the 2020-21 Report on Homeless Counts in B.C., visit:
https://www.bchousing.org/research-centre/housing-data/homeless-counts
A map showing the location of all announced provincially funded housing projects in B.C. is available online: https://www.bchousing.org/homes-for-BC
“If our plan to prevent and address homelessness across the province is to be successful, we’ll need information about where the work needs to be done to get people inside and prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place,” said David Eby, Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Housing.
The report, the first of its kind in Canada, uses anonymized provincial data from 2019 to create a reliable picture of people experiencing homelessness, including the community where they lived and whether their homelessness was short-term or chronic.
The Province has previously only had data on homelessness from community homelessness counts that provided a snapshot of homelessness at a particular point in time, but these were known to be undercounts. This new data project allows B.C. to count people experiencing homelessness who have always been a part of B.C. communities but were previously difficult to count through community homelessness counts.
The data will be collected and reported each year to provide information on trends and ensure solutions to homelessness can be targeted where they will be most effective.
The Province is also releasing the 2020-21 Report on Homeless Counts in B.C., which is the second provincial report on homeless counts. These reports occur every two years. Much of this data, including the Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley counts, was previously released in 2020, but has now been compiled into a provincewide report. In 2018, B.C. helped to fund the first provincewide homeless count in Canada, which was documented in the 2018 report on homeless counts.
