The amount of homeless individuals in the City of Regina finally has a number.

A total of 488 homeless individuals were counted in a Point-in-Time Count earlier this year.

The Flow Community Projects, in partnership with Namerind Housing Corporation, conducted the City’s third Point-in-Time Count of homelessness.

The two previous Pit Counts in Regina, conducted in 2015 and 2018, found 232 and 286 individuals to be homeless. As in last counts, this number included individuals sleeping rough (unsheltered), in shelters, public systems (detox), transitional housing and in hidden homeless (couch surfing).

Flow Community Projects Executive Director and PiT Count Coordinator Addison Docherty said the number represents a stark increase from 2018

“The Pit Count data validates what we’ve been hearing anecdotally for the past two years,” he said. “I have heard from nearly every community-based organization within the homeless serving sector that there has been a drastic increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness; more clients saying they have been staying on the street and an increase in clients with greater depth of needs.”

Typically, according to Docherty, one would expect the number of sheltered individuals to be lower and the number of individuals sleeping rough to be higher in fall due to the nicer weather. However, the 2021 PiT-Count found that both sheltered numbers and rough sleepers were higher than past counts. While sheltered numbers only increased from 172 (2018) to 185 (2021), the number of unsheltered (rough sleepers) dramatically increased from 6 in 2018 to 71 in 2021.

Docherty hopes that this year’s PiT-Count data will lead to the sense of urgency with which the homeless serving sector and other community-based organizations in Regina have been calling for.