Richmond’s homeless population is likely more than the 38 officially counted recently, according to Dianne Woodhouse, a warden at St.Alban’s Anglican Church.
“We’re probably over about 100 homeless here,” said Woodhouse.
Furthermore, a lack of affordable housing drives low-income people out of the city.
Last week, the Greater Vancouver Regional Steering Committee on Homelessness released its official 2014 homeless count survey, which indicated the city had just 38 homeless, representing just one per cent of the 2,777 homeless.
Woodhouse said while Richmond has excellent health and social services, housing is the biggest concern for the homeless.
Woodhouse said in the past year, the church’s emergency extreme-weather shelter has been at or over capacity.
“It shows you there has been quite an increase in these folks reaching out for help,” noted Woodhouse.
She said the city needs more affordable housing and shelter space, noting that government social housing officers attending the drop-in centre have had to move people from Richmond to surrounding municipalities.
“Build them and they will come,” she said.
She said it’s important that people who want to stay in Richmond can have that option.
“The last place they want to be is the Downtown Eastside (of Vancouver).”
She said lots of people couch-surf with family and relatives to avoid being “outed” as homeless.
“There’s no housing in Richmond. Literally no housing,” she said, noting even a 129-unit social housing complex to be built by 2016 is already largely accounted for by existing agencies.
She noted welfare payments (if a person even receives them) are effectively prohibitive in finding housing at market rates.
“I think the city is doing quite a bit, but not nearly enough,” she said.
Woodhouse added that the solution is complicated. She would never want to see models in Richmond like Vancouver’s single-room occupancy (SRO) apartments.
