Unhoused seniors say search for affordable housing in Metro Vancouver turns up 'nothing, nothing, nothing'
Many seniors also experience hidden homelessness, where housing is temporary or insecure: report
Retired counsellor Angela Jun and her husbandwere recently forced out of theirone-bedroom rental apartment on Dumfries Street in Vancouver'seast side, where theywere paying $1,400 a month.
"The owner sold the place, so since then we've been looking for housing. Nothing, nothing, nothing," Jun, 74,told CBC News' Lien Yeung.
Jun, who is Indigenous, says she and her 92-year-old husbandhave considered moving up to the Yukon where her dad owns land, but she feels compelled to stay in Metro Vancouver because it's where her adult kids and grandchildren live.
"I'm just stressed out but what can we do?" she said.
"The prime minister asked for big food markets not to raise the prices up, but how about housing, rental housing? Where are the people going to cook their food?"
The couple, who have since been staying with their son and daughter-in-law sleeping on the couch in their rental apartment are among many in the region who are without a home, and who have shared their struggles with CBC News.
According to an Oct. 5 report released by theHomelessness Services Association of B.C., 4,821 people have reported being without a permanent residence in the Metro Vancouver area in 2023 the highest number since the association began its bi-annual count in 2005.
The most recent count found 22 per cent of people surveyed were age55 or older, compared toabout 10 per cent of those counted in 2005. The survey also notedthat seniorsare more likely to experience hidden homelessness where accommodation is temporary or lacks security so the number could be higher.
Thirty-three per cent of survey respondents also identified as Indigenous. Of the Indigenous people counted, 64 per cent said they or their relativeshad been forced to attendresidential schools.
Of those surveyed in the most recent count, 64 per cent were sheltered, and30 per cent were unsheltered and making do outside, in a tent or makeshift shelter, a vehicle, oran abandoned building.
Sharon Desjarlais, 61, told CBC News she has been homeless and living on the street for more than a year.
"This is my home," Desjarlaissaid, pointing to a spot on the sidewalk on East Hastings Street in the Downtown Eastside.
"Sometimes when it rains, I go in the shelter," she said, addingthat means she has to separate from her adult son, who is also without housing.
When Desjarlais spoke to CBC News, she said her tent had recently been taken away by city workers cleaning up debris and garbage in theneighbourhood.
"They took away everything, and now we're starting all over."
Desjarlais said she's been offered housing for her and her adult daughter, but she turned it down because it wouldn't have allowed for her son to join them.
The count was conducted by a team of more than 1,000 volunteers who visited shelters, transition houses, safe houses, hospitals and jail holding cells between March 7 and 8.
The report notedthere are people experiencing hidden homelessnessand livingtemporarily in unstable housing or with friends, and whominterviewers didn't find while conducting the count.
The count took place inBurnaby, Coquitlam, Delta, Langley, New Westminster, North Vancouver, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Richmond, Ridge Meadows, Surrey, Vancouver, West Vancouver and White Rock.
In every community, the number of people experiencing homelessness had increased in the last three years, according to the report.
With files from Lien Yeung
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