Homelessness has been on the rise in Greater Vancouver and across Canada for a number of years. Canada’s national homelessness crisis has been attributed to the dismantling of Canada’s social safety net and the deinstitutionalization of mental health patients in the 1980s (1; 2). When mental health institutions were closed in the 1980s there was no where for many former patients to turn to other than the streets (2). But it is not only people with mental health problems who make up the homeless. Many people are homeless due to a variety of factors, including low incomes and skyrocketing housing costs. In 1998, the mayors of Canada’s largest cities declared that homelessness in Canada is a “national disaster” (3). Since that time the problem has only worsened. Between 2002 to 2005 the number of homeless people counted in a region-wide survey of the homeless in Greater Vancouver more than doubled to 2174 (4). This survey only provides a snapshot and is most certainly an undercount (4). Here are some key findings of the survey (4):

• 73% of the homeless were men

• The number of homeless seniors more than tripled between 2002 and 2005

• Aboriginal people make up 30% of the homeless population but only 2% of the general population

• One-third of the homeless people counted had been homeless for over one year

• There were 40 families with children counted among the homeless

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