‘It’s a crisis’: Regina homeless count sees 824, double 2021 number

As the temperature in Regina approached -40 C with the windchill and the province prepared for a snowstorm, inside downtown, Namerind Housing Corporation announced it counted a minimum of 824 people experiencing homelessness in Queen City.

The count was done over three hours on the night of October 1, with more than 90 volunteers speaking to people in and out of shelters.

Robert Byers, president and CEO of Namerind, said the number is important because homelessness is a community issue.

“We work in it every day, we know it’s a crisis, we know it’s bad out there, but the average person doesn’t,” explained Byers.

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“If you don’t talk about it and if you can’t provide some facts then it’s not real, it’s just something that people are doing and some people are experiencing homelessness and it doesn’t affect me, but when you see a number like 824, that’s impactful, like I feel like that hits me right here when we see that.”

This was the fourth point-in-time count done in Regina, and at 824 it is more than twice as many as were counted in 2021 — 408 — and more than three times more than the first count in 2015 — 232.

Byers participated in the count in 2015 and they had to go looking for people to speak to.

“This time, homeless people were everywhere. Everywhere we went there was three or four people. And now we have these tent communities with anywhere from ten to 60 people living there,” he said.

Lisa Workman, manager at Namerind, said the count only captures the minimum number of people experiencing homelessness.

“There’s more homelessness out there that just a point-in-time count can’t capture. We have hidden homelessness and all kinds of other homelessness that we are dealing with,” said Workman.

In 2024, 75 per cent of those counted identified as Indigenous while Indigenous people only make up 10 per cent of Regina’s overall population.

Workman attributed that to the kinds of intergenerational trauma Indigenous people tend to be subject to from things like residential school and the 60s scoop.

“Out of the intergenerational trauma comes cycles of addiction and poverty,” she explained.

Namerind listed a series of contributors to homelessness getting worse, including the pandemic, substance use crisis, a very low vacancy rate in the city and rental market affordability, and inadequate benefits under the provincial government’s SIS program.

“The SIS program, I think it’s no secret that it doesn’t give people enough income to cover the basic needs that they have, including housing,” said Workman.

Both Workman and Byers said to fix the problem there needs to be collaboration among groups, governments and the private sector.

A recent point-in-time homelessness count in Saskatoon found 1,500 people experiencing the problem.

New Regina Mayor Chad Bachynski was among those listening to the presentation.

“The numbers are shocking,” he said afterward.

City council and administration will be meeting in the new year to discuss homelessness, according to Bachynski, and there’s a meeting scheduled with Namerind after its larger plan is released.

Bachynski said he’s still trying to understand where the city sits on this issue.

“Ultimately we need to advocate for the dollars from the province, but the city does have a role to play. So, right now, we need to have really tactical discussions on what is the most effective way to address some of these issues and which groups and that can we leverage to support us as well,” he said.

Homelessness has been a hot-button issue at Regina city council in the past, with some councillors advocating for the city to take a leadership role in ending homelessness, while others on the council argued it wasn’t the city’s job.

The federal government has recently come forward to offer dollars to a few Saskatchewan cities to address the issue. Bachynski said these numbers will help in that discussion.

He said the numbers presented by Namerind made it clear there aren’t currently enough spaces for people to be safe in the city.

“The need for housing is clear, and the need for shelters and the need for spaces. You know, at the end of the day outside it’s -40 C today, this is survival mode for a lot of people. As a bare minimum to have people have a safe place to go and warm up and put their things and sleep at night, I think that’s a bare minimum,” said Bachynski.