This March, volunteers will be going out into various Greater Victoria communities to approximate how many unhoused individuals there are in the Greater Victoria area.
The bi-annual ‘Point-in-Time’ count will be conducted by the Community Social Planning Council (CSPC) with support from the Capital Regional District (CRD).
Throughout a 24-hour period, trained volunteers will count and survey individuals who are staying in shelters, short-term housing and sleeping rough (without shelter) in order to provide a snapshot of the current state of homelessness in Greater Victoria.
Additionally, the Point-in-Time count allows for unhoused individuals to share what their current needs are, as well as the circumstances which led to them being unhoused.
The survey data provides information about trends over time and acts as one of the tools that can help inform municipal and provincial plans for solutions that may meet the needs of the unhoused.
Following the survey being conducted on March 26th, a detailed review and report will be published.
In last year’s Point-in-Time count, the results estimated there were at least 1,665 unhoused individuals in the Greater Victoria region.
To aid in the count and survey process, Volunteer Victoria will be joining as a partner of the Point-in-Time count to take on organizing recruitment, training and logistics for the day.
As of this publication, volunteers are still needed for the count.
Those who volunteer will be involved in meeting and recording information from unhoused individuals.
Anyone interested in volunteering is asked to email the organizers of the event.
The Point-in-Time project is funded by the Canadian government with an investment of $134,096 from their funding to work on ending homelessness.
