The Fraser Valley Regional District (FVRD) and Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) released further findings of its homeless count at the April 24 council meeting.
The data adds depth onto the data they released in March, which did not have data on Hope, except that the homeless population here rose by 64 per cent compared to the homeless count in 2014.
The latest data showed that 42.3 per cent of homeless people move here from the Lower Mainland — 23.1 per cent come from the Fraser Valley Regional District’s boundaries while 19.2 per cent come from Metro Vancouver. Another 42.3 per cent move here from other parts of British Columbia. Only 11.5 per cent come from the rest of Canada and 3.5 per cent come from another country.
The top three sources of income were disability, income assistance and binning/bottles, while 17.1 per cent report no income.
Homeless people in Hope tend to be longer-term residents. People staying here for two years or more make up 58.2 per cent of homeless population, while people living here for less than a year make up 42 per cent.
“There is a significant proportion of people who are short-term homeless,” said presenter Ron van Wyk, from the MCC.
The top three barriers to housing in Hope, in descending order, are lack of suitable housing, unaffordable rents and low income. In the FVRD, those reasons made the top three reasons too, except lack of suitable housing was much smaller a factor — in Hope, it was 70.6 per cent, while in the FVRD, it was 42.7 per cent.
In Hope, the top three services used were soup kitchens, food banks and extreme weather shelters. The next three were medical services including emergency room, drop-in clinics and ambulances.
Not all homeless people who have a health issue seek health care. In Hope, 47.2 per cent have an addiction issue, while only 12 per cent seek treatment. Van Wyk noted this is a low number.
“It’s probably partly because it speaks to the availability of services to respond to that, but it also speaks to peoples’ readiness to, or not to, make use of existing services,” said van Wyk.
For medical conditions, 47.2 per cent suffer from one and 28.0 seek treatment. For mental illnesses, the rates are 36.1 per cent and 16.0 per cent respectively. Of the 27.8 per cent of homeless people with physical disability, only 0.4 per cent receive treatment.
Indigenous people make up a disproportionate number of homeless people in Hope — 33.3 per cent are First Nations, 2.8 per cent are Inuit and 2.8 per cent are Métis, while another 5.6 per cent say they have indigenous ancestry.
Van Dyk said they will do a deeper analysis on the findings, cross tabulations, deeper explanations. A report will come out by June with regional and local analysis.
Mayor Wilfried Vicktor asked van Wyk what he would do if finances did not constrain their efforts, to which he said he would expand services around detoxification, mental health, and addictions treatment, then supportive housing, and finally meaningful engagement of people once they leave treatment.
