The number of people without a home or shelter in Langley increased 12 per cent over the last three years, according to the Homeless Count for Greater Vancouver, released on Oct. 5.
The survey, which takes place once every three years, uses a small army of volunteers and social workers to attempt to count the number of people in shelters or sleeping in vehicles or on the streets. The count is a snapshot of the day it was conducted, this year on March 7 and 8.
This count, prepared by the Homelessness Services Association of B.C., found that 235 people were homeless in Langley on the day of the survey, up by 12 per cent compared to the previous survey in 2020.
Of those counted, 76 were in a homeless shelter and another 15 were in an emergency weather shelter.
A further 11 were listed as having “no fixed address,” a designation that means they were found in either a police holding cell, or, for most, in a hospital or health facility with nowhere to go once they were discharged.
The largest group, 133 people, were listed as unsheltered, meaning they were sleeping outside, in a tent or makeshift shelter, in a vehicle, or in about 19 per cent of cases across the region, they were temporarily staying with someone else who did have a conventional shelter.
Across Metro Vancouver, the count found a total of 4,821 people were homeless in 2023, a 32 per cent increase over the 3,634 people who were homeless during the previous count in 2020. That’s an additional 1,187 people without any form of stable housing in Metro Vancouver.
READ ALSO: Homelessness up 32% in Metro Vancouver compared to 2020
Langley’s increase, while significant in terms of the number of people on the streets, was relatively small compared to that in other communities, which saw skyrocketing homeless numbers over the last three years.
Delta saw 44 homeless people counted this year, a 159 per cent jump from the 17 counted three years before.
The Tri-Cities saw 160 people in this year’s count, an 86 per cent increase.
The largest increase in absolute terms was in Surrey, where numbers surged by 65 per cent, with 1,060 people counted, a full 416 more than three years before.
Although Langley saw the second smallest increase in terms of percentage, behind only White Rock, the number of people without permanent shelter has been going up steadily.
Part of the reason that Langley’s homelessness is increasing slower than some other communities comes down to the local team working to keep people housed, said the head of the Langley Intensive Case Management Team.
“What we’re doing right is we have a collection of agencies and individuals that are interested in not adding service provision, but putting the housing and shelter pieces in place,” said Fraser Holland.
That group of agencies includes the Salvation Army’s Gateway of Hope Shelter, the Langley Community Services Society, Encompass, Stepping Stone, the Lookout Society, the Lower Fraser Valley Aboriginal Society, and other groups.
“Those core agencies have always worked well,” said Holland, who has been working on aiding the homeless and those in danger of losing their housing in Langley for over a decade.
But despite their work, the agencies have failed to stop the homelessness numbers from climbing over the last three years.
Holland listed a host of challenges faced by people trying to stay housed, including a lack of “bricks and mortar” solutions that would require aid and approval from the local municipal governments.
Local agencies have also relied on a system of finding space for people in hotels when long-term rentals couldn’t be found. There are about three dozen people currently living in hotels without support – if those were added to the homeless count, Langley’s numbers would have been closer to the regional average, Holland noted.
“Those people were technically housed,” he said, but they’re potential “hidden homeless” not reflected in the report.
After COVID-19 restrictions ended, some local hotels evicted residents whose rent had been paid by BC Housing or other social housing agencies. The hotels wanted to free up space as travel and tourism resumed. It showed that the hotel housing was not as secure as permanent housing.
“We didn’t have a backup plan,” Holland said.
Behind all of these problems is the tight and expensive rental housing market.
For example, people are not moving out of Langley’s supportive housing projects, despite the fact that those projects were created with the goal of helping people stabilize and then move on.
“There’s nowhere for them to move to,” Holland said.
What Langley needs to bring homelessness numbers down and help more people stay housed is a strategy that looks at the needs from youth to seniors. It would mean new 10 to 15 bed spaces here and there, which would create “space to breathe,” Holland said.
There have been seven regional homeless counts so far, starting in 2005. Langley’s homelessness totals were:
• 2005: 57
• 2008: 86
• 2011: 103
• 2014: 92
• 2017: 206
• 2020: 209
As of 2023, the number of homeless people in Langley has more than quadrupled in 18 years.
In Langley, there have been no new shelter spaces opened in the last three years since the previous count. The most recent permanent shelter space created was a small number of beds for homeless youth at the Langley Youth Hub, which opened before the pandemic.
The main shelter for Langley is the Salvation Army’s Gateway of Hope, which opened its doors in 2009.
The main change in Langley’s shelter landscape between counts was the $10.1 million purchase by BC Housing of the former Canada’s Best Value Inn hotel on Glover Road in 2021. The hotel was turned into a supportive housing project, with 50 units.
That makes it Langley’s second supportive housing hotel conversion, following the creation of Creek Stone Place on 200th Street.
Between them, the two supportive housing projects have housed almost 100 people who were homeless or at severe risk of homelessness.
