Saskatoon's homeless population nearly doubled this year

Saskatoon's homeless population is on pace to more than double in one year, according to data from the Saskatoon Fire Department.

During city council's regular business meeting on Wednesday, councillors learned about the rapid growth of the city's homeless population prior to approving a temporary homeless shelter downtown.

"If this trend keeps going, we're going to outpace last year," assistant fire chief Yvonne Raymer said during a joint presentation with Saskatoon police.

"And the astounding number is the number of unhoused individuals that we've encountered."

Raymer said the fire department has counted 683 "inadequately housed" people between Jan. 1 and Sept. 15 this year. All of last year, the fire department counted 366 people in the same category. The year before it was 221.

"We know we're dealing with the same individuals when it comes to unhoused, addicted, and our mental health concerns," Raymer said.

If the current rate were to continue, Saskatoon's homeless population would hit 970 by the end of the year.

Raymer said encampments in the city have surged as well, though not to the same extent homeless numbers have.

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Up until Sept. 15, Raymer's staff have counted 932 encampments, which is on pace to surpass last year's count of 1020 in all of 2023. In 2022, there were 512 encampments recorded in Saskatoon.

Raymer said encampments are in nearly every neighbourhood in the city with 69 separate neighbourhoods reporting encampments.

By neighbourhood, 128 of these encampments are in Pleasant Hill, 99 are in Confederation Suburban Centre and 83 are in Riversdale.

Raymer said it has become more difficult for the fire department to clean up encampments as people refuse supports.

"The number of cleanups has actually slowed down. And a lot of it is because the individuals know if they don't take supports, it's time to collect your personal belongings, work with the inspectors, work with the AROs (alternative response officers), and try to come up with a solution if they won't take rehousing," Raymer said.

"However, I will say the encampment cleanups are actually larger than we've ever seen before, so it's actually taking longer to actually do the cleanups."

Raymer was joined by Staff Sgt. Michael Horvath at Wednesday's meeting. The pair pointed to a few potential reasons why the homeless population continues to increase, mainly that Saskatoon is a hub for services for smaller communities around Saskatchewan. Raymer said another reason is evacuees from events like wildfires are stationed in Saskatoon, then don't return home.

"Some get left behind, maybe because they connect to services. I don't know exactly the reason why they don't get connected back to the community. So our inspectors will take the time to do that outreach, make phone call back to whatever community office they're from, and try to make those arrangements," she said.

Raymer said sometimes that leads to difficult situations with a person's home community, who will tell the fire department there's no supports back home and they need to remain in Saskatoon.

"It's very complex," she said.

Horvath said the rapid growth has created "pressure points" in the city.

"The theme has been this past calendar year is this increased number of folks that are coming into our community that we just don't recognize and a lot of first time faces," Horvath said.

"We are no longer walking, we're running. We're running with the pressure points that are being created on our community."

Mayor Charlie Clark noted that for the first time, shelters in Saskatoon have been full all summer, a time when they're typically not as busy.

With the fire department and police able to present detailed information and data about homelessness, Clark wondered why the province doesn't have this information since it is responsible for funding and operating social services.

"That data collection and analysis work is still underway," Roger Parenteau, the executive director for housing operations with the Ministry of Social Services said.

Council voted to approve a 30 to 40 bed temporary shelter at the former Saskatchewan Transportation Company parcel depot at 210 Pacific Ave, but many councillors believe much more is needed to reverse the trend of Saskatoon's homeless population growing rapidly.

"Thirty to 40 beds is not enough," Ward 2 Coun. Hilary Gough said.

"I'm hoping that whatever the province decides going forward, that we don't lower the number of supports that we're offering to our city," Ward 6 Coun. Cynthia Block said.