The total number of people experiencing homelessness in Greater Vancouver grew by nine per cent in the last two years, the latest homeless count reveals.
Released Wednesday, the 2025 Point-in-Time Homeless Count preliminary data found 5,232 people were experiencing homelessness on March 10 and 11, up from 4,821 people during the count in 2023.
“This increase is consistent with the growth trend since regional point-in-time homeless counts began in 2005, with the total number of individuals experiencing homelessness from 2005 to 2025 increasing by 141%. Comparatively, Statistics Canada estimates that the Vancouver census metropolitan area’s total population from 2005 to 2024 has increased by 44%,” the report stated.
The count, which covered much of Metro Vancouver and parts of the Fraser Valley, recorded anyone who “does not have a place to pay rent.” Anyone who stayed overnight at a shelter, safe house, was temporarily in jail, detox, or hospital, and did not have a home to rent was included in the count.
This year’s count found that the over-representation of Indigenous people in the region’s houseless population “remained relatively similar” from 2023, at 34 per cent.
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“This continued over-representation reflects the ‘enduring effects of colonization, the legacy of the residential school system and the impact of child welfare and the foster care system continue to impact the daily experience of many Indigenous Peoples and families, and directly contribute to the high incidence of Indigenous homelessness,’” the report stated.
Vancouver and Surrey, specifically, have the largest number of people experiencing homelessness, the count found. In Vancouver, 2,715 people were either sheltered or unsheltered during the count, with Surrey having a further 777 people.
Most of those experiencing homelessness were between the ages of 25 and 54, the count found, with sixty-seven per cent of those counted being men.
Meanwhile, the count also found that the rate of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness increased by 30 per cent since the 2023 count. According to the report’s findings, the number of unsheltered people rose from 1,461 to 1,893 this year.
Lorraine Copas, chair of the Greater Vancouver Community Advisory Board for the Reaching Home Program, tells 1130 NewsRadio that the most alarming figure was the rise in street homelessness.
“These are people that could be in encampments. There may be a person who is sleeping rough on someone’s couch or couch surfing. But the majority of individuals would have been identified on the night of the count by the volunteers out living on the street,” Copas explained.
She says Vancouverites, and Canadians alike, are struggling amid inflation and an affordability crisis that’s pushing people out of housing and onto the street.
“That says to me that there’s a certain chronic homelessness that is happening where people are out on the streets for a long period of time, but you’re also seeing people that just can’t hold on in this market and can’t find housing they can afford.”
Copas says she hopes all levels of government are moved by the latest count to align their housing strategies and make a concerted effort to “prevent what has turned into a crisis.”
—With files from Srushti Gangdev
