300 volunteers to hit Winnipeg streets for homeless survey

Volunteers are heading out on Oct. 25and 26to determine for the first time the number of people who are sleeping on Winnipeg'sstreets.

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The street census will focus on a 24-hour period, when more than 300volunteers will hitemergency shelters, transitional housing locations, churches, drop-in centres, breakfast programs and the street itself. There, they will surveypeople they meet, asking questionsabout their living situations to determine whether they're homeless.

For Winnipeg's Social Planning Council, it's the first step to addressing the issue in a practical way.

"Siloam Mission tells me the beds are full;Resource Assistance for Youth tells me that youth keep having higher and higher needs;the women's centres tell me there [are]women that are in more and more precarious situations," saidChristinaMaesNino, community animator with the council.

"But wedon't have a place where all of that information is put together in a way that we can goto government, go to policymakers andgo to the public and say, 'This is a crisis.'"

The census is expected to fill that gap, but it will come with its share of challenges:For someone who lives on the street, being invisible is critical to survival,MaesNinosaid.

Al Wiebeknows that, having lived without a home for 18 months in Winnipeg, after he lost a well-paying job that he called "his life" while battlingundiagnosed clinical depression.

Wiebefled the city, looking for distraction.

"I spent enormous amounts of money to keep the depression away," he told CBC.

But it didn't work. He came back to Winnipeg on Christmas Day, with no friends or family waiting for him, and from there, things "spiralled out of control."

He credits a friendly nurse at St. BonifaceHospital for helping him pull his life together, and he said he is eager to help with the homeless census so the city can start targeting resources by getting a handle on the size and scope of the problem.

"When we go for funding, [we will]actually have a finite number to say this is what we need for this service," he said.