Homeless seniors on the rise in BC's capital

Photo: Glacier Media/file photo

In the past few years, Grant McKenzie has noticed more seniors coming to Victoria's Our Place for meals.

The increase concerns McKenzie, Our Place Society’s director of communications, because it reflects the struggle for a population that is increasingly having to choose between paying rent and buying food as rents in the region rise, he said.

“Seniors are already vulnerable. It’s quite easy for them to lose their homes, and especially with the rate of high rents,” McKenzie said.

Over the weekend, Victoria police helped dig out a man in his 80s who was living in a tent in someone’s yard, after heavy snowfall collapsed the tent, trapping the man inside. He was unharmed, and told police he was happy with his living arrangement and had an agreement with the homeowner to live there for the past year.

While some people want to live outside, Rev. Al Tysick, who works closely with the street community as the executive director of the Dandelion Society, said the vast majority of those he encounters want to have a roof over their heads.

People ages 55 and up made up 19 per cent of the region’s homeless population last year, according to a count by the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness, which provides a snapshot of homelessness in the community each year. That’s a seven per cent jump from 2011-2012, when seniors made up 12 per cent of the street population, and substantially up from eight per cent in 2008-2009.

The 2020 point-in-time count also showed 38 per cent of homeless seniors had their first experience with homelessness after age 55.

McKenzie said harm-reduction measures have played a role in the increasing number of seniors without housing, since people are living longer on the street.

“Up until four or five years ago, maybe an old person living on the street would be in their 40s. And usually their addiction would end their life quite early,” he said. “But now we’re starting to see a lot more people in their 60s and up.”

Harm reduction may be helping more people live longer, but there aren’t enough supports to house people as they age, McKenzie said.