Advocates sound alarm at growing number of homeless seniors in Metro Vancouver

Advocates are sounding the alarm about the rising number of homeless seniors in B.C.’s Lower Mainland.

The 2023 Greater Vancouver Homeless Count revealed more than one in five of the region’s homeless, (22 per cent) are aged 55 or older.

That’s more than double the 10 per cent who were homeless in 2005.

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The figures include men like 77-year-old David Higgins, who spent most of his late 60s living in shelters as he worked in construction cleanup.

It was an experience Higgins said nearly killed him.

“It was one of the administrators that phoned 911. Somehow I got an infection in my blood during the time I was at the shelter,” he told Global News.

Higgins said he’d previously applied for social housing but was told as a healthy man without drug or alcohol problems he’d likely be waiting as long as eight years.

“When I was in the hospital, the advocate came and saw me and said, ‘David, I have great news,'” he explained.

“You have a barrier now and we’re going to be able to place you … you’re nearly dead.”

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Higgins now lives at Veterans Manor, a low-income complex near Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside serving low-income seniors and veterans at risk of homelessness.

The facility provides homes and services — ranging from social activities to shopping to help with their taxes — for 133 men, explained Jenny Konkin, president.

But those clients are just a drop in the bucket in the face of a growing problem, she said, adding that nearly half (45 per cent) of the homeless seniors identified in the recent count had become unhoused for the first time after they turned 55.

“We’re seeing not only an increase in the demographic but also in first-time homelessness as a senior, which is very troubling,” she said.

“We’re allowing our seniors to slip through he cracks.”

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What’s more, Konkin believes the problem is much worse than the statistics show, with many of the region’s homeless seniors being “invisible.”

“They don’t tend to be the ones out asking for help, they kind of come from a generation of pull up your boot straps, and so often they are living in cars, they are couch surfing or living really precariously housed, for example in (single room occupancy hotels),” she explained.

Organizations like Whole Way House are doing what they can to try and get ahead of the problem.

Konkin said the organization is a part of a pilot project with BC Housing and four other buildings that’s working to find more supportive and suitable long-term housing for seniors at risk of homelessness.

“We want to get on the prevention side,” she said. “We’re already in crisis mode that nobody is really talking about.”

The 2023 regional homeless count was the first since the COVID-19 pandemic, and found the number of people experiencing homelessness in the Lower Mainland was up 32 per cent from 2020.