A late-night tour of both Langleys will give members of the Township and City councils a street-level view of the life young homeless people lead.
Both Township Mayor Jack Froese and City Mayor Peter Fassbender were among those expected to attend the two-hour Friday walk that will start at 11 p.m. in the parking lot of the Township municipal facility.
The event is being organized by Loren Roberts, the program coordinator for the Aldergrove Neighbourhood Services Youth Homelessness Initiative.
The Friday night walk will include scavenger hunts to demonstrate just how few options young homeless people have, Roberts said.
For one hunt, participants will be told to look for as-yet undisclosed types of “youth-friendly” venues open after 11 p.m. at night.
“They’re not going to find it,” Roberts predicted.
On the Monday before the walk, Roberts appeared before Township council to warn the numbers of young homeless people has reached a “frightening” level in the community.
He said a store-front Langley City office that opened in June of 2012 to help the homeless has so far encountered 79 cases of homeless people under the age of 25, 55 of them under the age of 19.
And those are only the ones the office has directly dealt with, Roberts cautioned.
The actual number could be higher, because the homeless, especially young ones, are usually reluctant to reach out.
“They’re not used to asking for help,” Roberts said. “That’s one of the things you have to teach them.”
A 2011 homeless count of all communities in the Lower Mainland found a total of 397 “unaccompanied youth under the age of 25.”
It was the highest number of unaccompanied homeless youth ever found in the region, up 29 per cent from a previous homeless tally in 2008.
Roberts said he has sometimes been forced to transfer local homeless youth to other Metro Vancouver communities if they need immediate shelter.
He said most of the young homeless survive by couch-surfing homes of friends with sympathetic parents or settling for accommodation that is “not in the best of circumstances” Roberts said.
He said landlords are reluctant to rent to under-age tenants, in part because people below the age of consent can’t be held legally liable for damage to the suites.
The Township recently contributed $5,000 to provide emergency cold-weather shelter for young homeless people.
Roberts said work to obtain funding for an expanded homeless shelter for under-25 people is underway.
“We’re developing a bit of a business plan,” he said.
