A recent report by the BC Coroners Service shows that 458 people died while homeless in this province in 2023.
The raw number 鈥� 458 鈥� is alarming enough. We shouldn't have 458 people living homeless in this province, period, much less dying without a permanent, safe residence to call their own.
But digging into the data there are some more alarming numbers.
First, the number of deaths in 2023 was up 23 per cent from 2022's deaths (373) and up 54 per cent from 2021 (297 deaths).
Second, the majority of the deaths are not those of elderly people coming to the natural end of their lives. More than half of those who died in 2023 were men aged 30 to 50. In fact, the highest proportion of deaths was for men aged 30-40.
Not surprisingly, the main cause of death in most homeless people is toxic drug overdoses, which was responsible for around 86 per cent of deaths.
While the majority of those who have died of the toxic drug crisis were housed, the homeless are uniquely vulnerable. The two scourges are intertwined, and reinforce one another.
How do you start getting off the streets while battling an addiction? How do you get clean from an addiction while living on the streets with few or no resources?
It is possible to lift the thousands of people currently living in cars and shelters and tents out of homelessness.
It requires a number of ingredients 鈥� political will, stable funding, partnerships, and compassion are among them.
Finland has massively reduced the level of homelessness in recent years with a housing-first approach, and that's something we need to look at here. The idea that having a roof over your head, four walls, a secure door and some warmth and privacy ought to be a basic right in our society has been a long time coming.
For too long, we've made housing conditional. But the price of housing has gone up and up and up, and the people hanging onto the housing ladder by their fingernails have simply fallen off.
For most of these people, homelessness was not the direct cause of their deaths, but it was a major contributing factor. Ending homelessness would mean saving many lives every year.
