The number of homeless people in Quebec increased by 44% compared to 2018, according to a report from the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ) commissioned by the Ministry of Health and Social Services.
“We can estimate, based on the available data and after making the required adjustments, an increase of 2,523 people experiencing visible homelessness, or an increase of 44%, which represents a marked increase,” we can read in the report’s technical sheet.
It is also indicated that homelessness has increased in all regions of Quebec, but in different proportions. More than 60% of people experiencing homelessness find themselves in Montreal.
To collect data, the INSPQ deployed hundreds of stakeholders, street workers and volunteers during the night of October 11, 2022 in 13 regions of Quebec.
The report estimates that 10,000 people were homeless last night. The report, however, issues a warning about its method. “The estimated number of people experiencing homelessness, as part of this exercise, only concerns the night of October 11, 2022. It is lower than the total number of people who experience an episode of homelessness over the course of a year . »
Causes
The shortage of affordable housing and COVID-19 are causes identified in the report for the increase in homelessness.
We also indicate that we have improved the methodology compared to 2018. In fact, the regions of Abitibi-Témiscamingue and Côte-Nord as well as the municipalities of Gatineau, Trois-Rivières, Drummondville and Saint-Jérôme in particular, have been added to the survey compared to 2018.
Homelessness affects Indigenous people more strongly, particularly in Montreal and in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue and Côte-Nord regions.
The report indicates that Indigenous people experiencing homelessness are particularly present in outdoor places and emergency accommodation resources, and therefore less in transition resources and therapy centers. Also, a greater proportion of Aboriginal people have spent the entire year in a situation of homelessness. Aboriginal people are twice as likely to “report that racism is linked to the loss of their last home”.
“Faced with these findings, we must ask ourselves questions about the structural issues, of a historical and social nature, surrounding Indigenous homelessness and other associated issues. It must be admitted that strategies to prevent both the slide into homelessness and the complexity of the problems experienced are either insufficient, non-existent, or ineffective,” the report states.
Homelessness is also over-represented among people who have been placed in the past by the Youth Protection Department, people of sexual and gender diversity and people who have been evicted from their housing.