The City of Yellowknife is set to start its count on the amount of homeless people it has. It's part of a larger project known as Point-In-Time (PiT), a nationwide effort to measure homelessness in the country.
The last time a PiT count happened in Yellowknife was in 2021, according to the city, in which they found 312 homeless people. Since then, the city expects that number to have grown, a point made by Mayor Rebecca Alty during a previous interview with SA国际影视传媒 back in August.
Dan Ritchie, a homelessness specialist with the city, also expects a higher number this year. Though he couldn't give an estimate on what that number is, he did mention the city has a total of 450 surveys for homeless people to fill out for the PiT.
For a survey to be considered complete, Ritchie explained a homeless person will need to answer 15 prescribed questions.
"People don't have to answer any of the questions that they don't want to," he added, noting they will simply mark that question as having been declined to answer.
Yellowknife's PiT this year is expected to cost around $30,000, every dollar of which has been provided through the Government of Canada's Reaching Home program, Ritchie said.
It only takes a day to get the count, but there's some proof reading to make sure there no are duplicates or errors, meaning the final number should be released in the weeks to come, he added..
The city is also in talks with a consultancy group with experience with PiTs and if all goes well, that report will come out in early 2025, said Ritche, although there's no quoted amount at the moment about how much that would cost.
The count considers a homeless person as "individuals staying in shelters, short-term housing, and sleeping without shelter, over a 24-hour period," according to a news release from the city.
"Outreach volunteers will visit various parts of town and survey members of the visible homeless population," it stated. "No door-to-door surveys will be conducted."
A total of 40 volunteers, who are mostly front line workers, are working on the PiT, Ritchie explained, and while the count will take place sometime next week, no specific day was given when.
Whatever the number is, it'll be broken down by gender, age, ethnicity, and other demographics as well, the release adds.
Coun. Ben Hendriksen, chair of the city's community advisory board, said that one of the reasons counts like these matter is because for people to decide there's cause for change, they need to see it to believe it.
"People often need data to truly believe something," he said. "For a lot of people, the numbers are what actually will make action happen."
Hendriksen said he has no idea what he expects the final number to be but like Alty and Ritchie, he wouldn't be surprised if it increased.
"From seeing results of PiT counts in the past, it's getting an understanding of where people are experiencing homelessness," he said, noting that a majority of people from other communities outside Yellowknife end up becoming homeless here.
He added he would be surprised if this year's count showed something different.
Both Hendriksen and Ritchie noted that the full PiT can influence policy and give a better understanding of what the needs in the city are at both the federal and territorial level.
