An artificial intelligence algorithm has crunched the numbers for how many people in Canada could be homeless by 2030.
According to the predictive AI by HelpSeeker, a Calgary technology company working to address social problems, Canada’s homeless population will almost double in the next six years.
“That doesn’t mean that we’re going to be looking at visible homelessness,” Alina Turner, CEO of HelpSeeker, said in a press conference Monday. “We have layers of visibility, we have rough sleeping, an encampment, we’ve got people that are in those unsafe situations (and) we have people that are couch surfing.”
HelpSeeker’s AI used data from municipalities across the country including shelter usage, hidden homelessness estimates, inflation trends, unemployment numbers and other factors like housing and rental stock.
One of the key sets of data for the AI is the predicted population growth of the country, which is set to be around 50 million in the next six years, according to Statistics Canada.
Predictions from HelpSeeker’s AI on how many people in Canada that will be homeless by 2030. (HelpSeeker)
Compounding all these factors, the AI predicted that homelessness is likely to increase by roughly 83 per cent by 2030.
Due to a lack of data, Turner said it’s unclear exactly what Canada’s current at-risk homelessness statistics are. The population of Canadians at risk of homelessness is projected, however, to be close to one million by the end of the decade.
Hidden homelessness, which describes people who could be couch surfing and not presenting at shelters, is expected to reach around 300,000 people by 2030, the AI predicts.
Furthermore, the AI noted people living in absolute homelessness, or those who have no physical home and spend nights in emergency shelters, will reach around 200,000 people by 2030.
HOW DO WE CLOSE THE GAP?
Preventing these predictions from becoming true will require concrete action across the country, researchers from HelpSeeker say.
“It’s going to take a lot, it’s going to take complex care and supportive housing beds,” Turner said.
HelpSeeker’s predictive AI and researchers believe Canada needs to invest about $169 million to close the gap for homelessness. (HelpSeeker)
Researchers believe by 2030 an increase of 103,000 beds with medical care, 1.3 million non-market housing units, 50,000 recovery and transitional care beds and 30,000 emergency shelter beds would help tackle the issue of homelessness in Canada.
“If we’re not able to build these systems now, these trajectories are going to go unchanged,” Turner said.
The federal government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?
If Canada used funding geared toward the “right interventions,” Turner said, the homelessness numbers would look very different in the next six years.
It will cost Canada more than $169 billion to build the total emergency shelters and social or subsidized housing needed, HelpSeeker estimates.
However, to maintain these supports and prevent more people from being homeless, each year the costs will be around $16 billion, the company said.
“The good news is, we do have about a trillion dollars every year that is going into the social safety net,” Turner said. “It’s going into everything from addiction to mental health, homelessness and housing instability and community personal safety. So can we afford it? First of all, we can’t afford not to.”
Several stakeholders from other organizations and municipalities also raised concern at the lack of action they’re seeing.
Susan McGee, CEO of Homeward Trust an Edmonton homelessness organization, said investment into social safety nets and housing has a “real-time” impact on people and that Canadians cannot wait any longer for these investments.
“We have seen a really significant increase in deaths directly related to being unsheltered,” she said at the press conference. “This is immediate and urgent and we need to treat it like the crisis that it is.”
Jamie Lloyd-Smith, a social development specialist with the City of Penticton, B.C., shared similar concerns.
Lloyd-Smith said her community of about 37,000 has seen a large population growth, which has spiked the demand for affordable housing.
Without funding from higher levels of government, she said the community is struggling to support its homeless population.
“I often say we were too small to be a big city, but we were too big to be a small city, and so from a funding and resource perspective, we were often left out of some of those funding calls,” she said.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
