How many people are homeless in Winnipeg?
How many people are homeless in Winnipeg?
It's a question Brian Bechtel the director of the Winnipeg Poverty Reduction Council hopes to answer in the next year.
"What we don't have is standard ways of sharing information across the whole system. So a homeless count is one way on one day you gather it from the whole system and look at how all the pieces are working together," said Bechtel.
Having a census was just one of the recommendations in a report titled, "The Plan to End Homeless In Winnipeg," that the council released in April of this year.
The group also notes that other jurisdictions in Canada and the U.S. have been doing counts for years and having defined and track-able success with it.
The federal government now requires a census of a city's homeless in order for groups to qualify for funding.
Bechtel said until now, there's only been estimates based on facilities' capacities and their usage rates.
"We have a core of people, maybe 1,000, maybe 1,500, we don't know who have been stuck in homelessness for a long time and that's the group that our long-term plan to end homelessness really focuses on, because those people are clearly stuck, they need more then just a shelter or a piece of advice, they need an intervention."
What to Ask
The census isn't designed yet, but Bechtel is already in the process of asking pertinent questions.
"What are the critical things? It's mostly where did you sleep last night? Where were you six months ago? How long have you been homeless? Where are you from and some basic demographic information."
Such a census will rely heavily on volunteers from the community and collaborating with front line providers.
"You probably will count about two-thirds of your homeless population, but the key is that over time, if you do it consistently, every year, or every two years, you'll really begin to see a trend," said Bechtel.
Agencies will begin meeting over the next month to decide what to include in a census and the best way to conduct it, which will likely be done over a one- or two-day period to provide a snap shot of that time.
