October census finds more than 1,700 homeless in Winnipeg

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/11/2015 (3608 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A voluntary census shows of the more than 1,700 people homeless people in Winnipeg, more than 75 per cent identify as indigenous and almost 50 per cent have been in foster care or group homes.

A point-in-time count conducted on Oct. 25 revealed there were at least 1,727 homeless people in Winnipeg. Of that figure, 132 were unsheltered, 343 were in emergency shelters, 361 were in transitional housing, and 300 at friends/family/strangers. The rest were in motels, transitional housing or couch surfing.

The summary of Winnipeg’s first-ever street census of homeless people was released Wednesday, an initiative co-ordinated by the Winnipeg Social Planning Council as a way to not just count the homeless in the city, but to learn why they became homeless and hear the stories behind the statistics.

An example of one of those stories is Warren Mainville and Wanda Deneve, a couple who met and fell in love at Siloam Mission and are now engaged. Both reached the shelter from two very separate set of circumstances.

Mainville is 50 years old and originally from the northwestern Ontario town of Fort Frances. He wound up at Siloam Mission after coming to Winnipeg last year for a job that fell through. Without a high school education and savings to fall back on, Mainville wasn’t able to find a job and ended up at the shelter last April.

“It’s not having qualifications, like a Grade 12, I lost my licence so that really put a damper on me finding another job,” Mainville said Wednesday outside Siloam Mission.

Similar to 52 per cent of the respondents of the census, Mainville is from a First Nation — Couchiching First Nation in Northern Ontario.

“I know when I was working and I saw homeless people, I would think they are lazy and now I am on the inside, looking out, it is not a lot different. Everyone has their own stories to tell about it,” he said.

Deneve, originally from Saskatchewan, is 45 years old and was deported from the United States after living there for 20 years. She was dropped off at the Emerson border crossing three months ago without any friends or family to turn to. Like 40 per cent of the respondents, Deneve experienced family violence growing up, which played a role in her ending up on the streets this year,

“That’s why I am not back in Saskatchewan. I haven’t talked to my family in years,” she said.

Both said the key to ending homelessness in Winnipeg is through more transition housing, giving people a chance to work at a job and not having to be at the shelter by 8 p.m. in order to get a bed for the night.

“One thing I know about being homeless is you never starve — there’s lots of food. It is shelter that we need,” Deneve said. “It’s a comfort to know you have something to fall back on.”

The figures in the release didn’t surprise Christina Maes Nino, community animator for the Social Planning Council of Winnipeg, who helped collect the data. Her hope is that different groups and organizations such as Siloam Mission can use the census results when making funding proposals to governments and planning their programs.

“For people who have worked or done research into homelessness, it wasn’t surprising. It just confirmed what we were thinking or sort of knew,” Maes Nino said after the report was released at Thunderbird House on Main Street.

However, it was the events that led to people winding up on the streets that surprised Maes Nino. The survey found that the median age when people first became homeless was 24, but the most frequent age was 18. The majority of those facing chronic homelessness (over 10 years) first became homeless when they were 18 years or younger.

“It really demonstrates if we want to stop homelessness or end it, that’s the age we need to focus on,” she said.

The survey also revealed close to 60 per cent of indigenous respondents had been in foster care or group homes. Larry Wucherer, operations manager for Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre, a resource centre that supports aboriginal families, said it demonstrates the relationship between children aging out of the foster care system and not having access to needed resources to live on their own.

“That is a systemic problem. So if a policymaker or government officials was looking at this, I would a see a direct connection between releasing someone that is 18 without giving them adequate support to transition to a “normal life” and seeing that 60 per cent costs the city even more money than helping them or giving them an extension,” Wucherer said.

kristin.annable@freepress.mb.ca