The last City of Vancouver homelessness count showed that there are over 1,200 homeless people in the Downtown Eastside, including 600 unsheltered, which is an undercount. In March, the City of Vancouver declared a homelessness emergency in the city of Vancouver. This is a population that has sustained trauma—personal, systemic and colonial trauma, poverty and stigma, and the trauma of the HIV epidemic in the 1990s.
Now it is in the midst of one of the worst traumas: the opioid crisis that has claimed almost 1,000 lives in the last four years. Added to this is the current pandemic, which both directly and indirectly impacts people in many ways.
The CDC explains that COVID-19 most affects older adults and those with pre-existing health conditions, such as those with heart disease, diabetes, asthma, HIV, COPD and lupus. Housing activists have stated over the years that housing is health care. Homeless people already die at a rate that is twice as high as that of the rest of the population.
Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition in the U.S., says it has never been so obvious that “housing is health care” and that we must provide resources to protect people who are homeless from infection and contagion. We also need to prevent others from becoming homeless during a public health emergency. It's really critical. Not only is it a moral imperative that we do so, but a public health necessity.
Homelessness is currently at an all-time high. Numbers increased by 1% to 2% over the last few years, and homelessness counts are always undercounts. SROs, shelters and supportive housing went into lockdown early in the pandemic.