Homeless population increasing in area

By Dan Hilborn
Published March 19, 2005


While the final numbers will not be known for another month or more, officials who worked on Tuesday's count of homeless people believe there is a growing number of people living on the streets and in the parks of the Lower Mainland.

"At this point, we believe the numbers are on the rise," said Lynn Wood, executive director of the Burnaby-based Progressive Housing Society.

In Burnaby, about 30 volunteers, including staff from Progressive Housing and members of the Fraser Health Authority's new task force on homelessness, combed the city's parks, bridges and back alleys looking for homeless people.

But, while the numbers across the Lower Mainland appear to be up, the volunteers, who included local church officials, school board employees and MP Peter Julian, found fewer homeless people than anticipated in Burnaby.

"I was kind of surprised that we didn't find as many people as I thought we would," said Jennifer Brubacher, a former mental health worker who will become Burnaby's new homeless outreach worker on April 1. "I usually see a few (homeless people) during the day when I'm driving around Burnaby.

"But, on the day of the count, it seemed there weren't as many people around."

The count is a semiannual project coordinated by the Greater Vancouver Regional District and conducted under the auspices of the Social Planning and Research Council of B.C.

Michael Goldberg, the council's research director, said one of the most heartening aspects of this year's count was the fact that the number of volunteers was up substantially from the previous count.

"Our goal was to try and get 100 volunteers, which would have been double the number we had in 2002. We ended up with over 300 people who helped on this count, and that meant we were able to start earlier in the morning," he said.

Among the volunteers were majors Don and Elizabeth Grad, pastors of the Salvation Army Metrotown Citadel.

"We just seek to be helpful as the needs present themselves," said Don.

In addition to their work with the count, the Grads have sponsored a regular Monday night food program for several years in which they deliver soup and sandwiches to locations in South

Burnaby where homeless people congregate.

But the pastor did not want to speculate whether the state of homelessness is an increasing problem in Burnaby.

"That's a rather politically loaded question," he said. "I think Burnaby, like any city, has homeless people, but I don't have any hard facts, per se. ... I couldn't say if it's better, worse or the same. The poor will always be around us."

But Wood suspects that the lower than expected preliminary numbers in Burnaby may be the result of a "migration" of homeless people into Vancouver.

"We had nests pointed out to us, and we visited them, but people didn't present at those locations," said Wood, noting that 'nests' was a term used by police during a Feb. 23 public safety meeting in the Edmonds area to describe any outdoor location where a homeless person can make a safe place for themselves out of public view.

But while the 'nests' were mostly empty, Wood and her team did find evidence of homelessness in Burnaby.

"The preliminary figures we have show at least as many homeless people as in the previous count," she said.

Those numbers will likely rise when officials tally up the number of people found in other communities who list Burnaby as their real home, Wood said.

"If someone comes forward at a New West shelter and says that they're from Burnaby, that will be counted."

Dr. Nadine Loewen, the Fraser Health Authority's medical health officer for Fraser North, and co-chair of the new Burnaby task force on homelessness, said her group is looking forward to the final tally so they can incorporate that information into their work.

The task force, which was struck by the health authority in December in response to calls from Wood and others for a homeless shelter in Burnaby, is currently working on its terms of reference.

"The task force is open to agencies that are wanting to participate," said Loewen. "One of the things the group wants to do is make sure all the information on the situation has been gathered and analyzed, then we'll look at the needs and gaps."