Volunteers on the Sunshine Coast are expected to spend March 6 gathering information from the local homeless population as part of a 16-community count being run by the Homelessness Services Association of BC (HSABC) and BC Housing, but at least one potential volunteer says he chose not to participate over concerns about the type of questions being asked.
In an email to Coast Reporter, Erich Schwartz said, “I expected a series of questions to be asked that would help identify the scale of the issue so an appropriate response could be developed by housing advocates and various government agencies.”
Instead he found he would be expected to ask questions looking for information about such things as gender identification and sexual orientation, immigration status, health issues, and service in the RCMP or Canadian military.
“I couldn’t imagine approaching a stranger and asking such questions on the grounds of conducting a ‘homeless’ survey and chose to leave the training session,” Schwartz said, adding that he had doubts about whether gathering that information would benefit homeless people.
At least one other person, who chose not be named, confirmed to Coast Reporter that they also withdrew for similar reasons.
The questions in the March 6 count are the same that were asked in past years and are based in part on a guide published by the federal government for so-called “point-in-time” homeless counts.
The Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction told Coast Reporter that federal funding is one of the reasons it’s important “to align our questions with those being asked across Canada.”
The province also provides funding for homeless counts.
A ministry spokesperson said volunteers often have questions about why certain information is asked for.
“We go over each individual question and provide space for volunteers to ask questions. Often there are questions brought forward, but once an explanation is provided volunteers generally understand why each specific question is asked,” the spokesperson said via email.
“The questions are chosen based on a number of factors including consultation with experts and community organizations and consistency with previous years to ensure trend data… In the past, these questions have had a significant impact in developing services and approaches to address homelessness.”
The ministry response went on to give the example of quantifying the extent to which people with certain health issues, including addictions or mental health issues, were experiencing homelessness.
“The data collected has been integral to the understanding that populations experience homelessness differently and that some groups, such as Indigenous people and people with trans experience, are overrepresented in homelessness numbers. Research has also identified a strong connection between homelessness and brain injuries, and service agencies have asked for more data in order to develop more services targeted to this population.”
The ministry said the answers help create programs and services that “connect directly with the people and populations that are experiencing homelessness.”
The federal government’s guide to point-in-time homeless counts, which includes explanations for each of the “core survey questions,” is available online at:
https://www.homelessnesslearninghub.ca/library/resources/guide-point-time-counts-canada-3rd-edition
You can also find the final report for the 2018 count, which identified 57 people in the Sechelt-Gibsons corridor who were homeless, online at:
https://hsa-bc.ca/2018-homeless-count.html
