A new survey shows there is about 500 homeless people in the Kenora District.
344 paper surveys were filled out and 156 people were observed to be homeless in October during the one-day, point-in-time count.
The survey was conducted over 10 days. On day for each community in the Kenora District.
Henry Wall is the CEO of the Kenora District Services Board and says the point-in-time survey may have its limitations, but it does serve a purpose.
“There’s not perfect methodology to find out exactly why these people are homeless or precariously housed,” Wall recently told Kenora city council.
“But the best thing we can do is to understand what the individual reasons are as to why.”
Wall admits a point-in-time survey isn’t ideal because so many other things go into making a person homeless.
“It isn’t perfect by any means, but I think it is a good indicator. So, we’re all using that yard stick. Weather is a big component to it…the time of the month is a big component in terms of when our social assistance payments are made. So, there are a lot of things that factor into that.”
The survey shows that Kenora has the highest number of homeless people with 325, followed by Sioux Lookout with 71 and Dryden with 50.
Wall adds that 164 people spent the night before the survey in remand at a local jail.
The full report can be found here
