Main Street Project, RaY, Siloam Mission, Sunshine House, West Central Women’s Resource Centre Respond to Point in Time Count
The latest Point in Time Count reflects the reality we see every single day. While this snapshot identified approximately 2,400 people experiencing homelessness in Winnipeg on one day, we know the actual number is much closer to 4,000.
This report must be a call to action. Winnipeg urgently needs investments that address both immediate needs and long-term solutions.
Housing: Shelters are not housing. When we combine the estimated 700 people living in encampments with the 863 people staying in shelters (as identified in the report), we already require at least 1,500 units of housing – and that does not include the many more people who are entering homelessness faster than housing is being built. We need a massive investment in housing with supports, and we need it now.
Youth in Care: The report highlights CFS as a pipeline to homelessness but its recommendations fall short. Youth are too often apprehended due to poverty and structural, historic violence. Preventing this requires strong neighbourhood supports – community centres, libraries, schools, childcare, and adult learning. While supports often drop as youth age out of care, the lasting impact of negative care experiences on housing stability and well-being must also be addressed.
Healing and Mental Health Supports: Homelessness is deeply connected to untreated trauma, mental health challenges, and addiction. Yet resources remain far too limited. We need expanded access to healing programs, mental health care, treatment beds, and harm reduction services -programs that meet people where they are at. Without this, we cannot adequately respond to the homelessness crisis.
Indigenous-Led healing: True investment is required in Indigenous-led and facilitated healing spaces, supported by a full sustainability plan to ensure they endure and grow. We have seen profound healing among those who engage in their ceremonies, build up their bundles and we know these culturally grounded approaches are vital to addressing the deep intergenerational trauma that fuels homelessness.
Specialized Services: We know that some groups are at increased risk of experiencing homelessness due to system gaps and require specialized services to support them. Indigenous people, women, the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, and youth experience homelessness differently, and supports designed by and for these communities are integral to their housing success.
Short-Term Frontline Response: Outreach teams, case managers, and on-site supports are stretched beyond capacity. Immediate investment is required to stabilize people in the short term, while also advancing systemic changes to ensure that no one is discharged from CFS, justice, health, or other systems into homelessness.
Income Supports: Poverty drives homelessness. A universal basic income or, at minimum, increased EIA rates and sustained housing benefits would provide people with access to safe housing, including in the private market.
Organizations like Main Street Project and our partners have been calling for these investments for years. Coming out of the pandemic, we are now facing the combined epidemics of homelessness and toxic drug deaths. These are public health emergencies. We cannot continue to ignore the systemic and policy failures that fuel these crises.
It is time for urgent, coordinated action to ensure every person in Winnipeg has a safe place to call home and the supports they need to live with dignity.
For Inquiries:
Main Street Project: aziprick@mainstreetproject.ca
RaY: ksjoberg@rayinc.ca
Siloam Mission: communications@siloam.ca
Sunshine House: comms@sunshinehousewpg.org
West Central Women’s Resource Centre: lorie@wcwrc.ca
