City of Vancouver's annual homelessness count begins Monday night
Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson pledged to end homelessness by 2015, but concedes it's not going to happen
Vancouver begins its annual ritual of counting its homeless people on Monday night — in the same year the city's Mayor Gregor Robertson vowed to end homelessness.
The annual homeless count begins at 5 p.m. PT and will carry on right into Tuesday morning.
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Last year the count found the number of homeless people on the streets had doubled, even though Robertson had pledged to end street homeless by 2015. Robinson has since conceded it's not going to happen.
Coun. Kerry Jang says they are still committed to ending homelessness, but there is a lot at play in Vancouver.
"There's new homeless in our streets that's coming from around the province," said Jang.
"No one anticipated that for example, because we never saw those types of numbers coming into the city."
The count began in 2002 and aims to track not only raw numbers but also demographics of homeless people.