A recently released report by BC Coroners Service shows deaths of homeless people soared in 2021.
According to the numbers released by the coroner last Wednesday, there were 247 deaths in the province last year within the homeless community. That’s a 75% increase over a year.
Of those deaths, 44 occurred on Vancouver Island, 18 of those were in the Victoria area.
Since the coroner began tracking deaths in the homeless community in 2012, there have been 99 deaths in total on Vancouver Island.
“This report reflects the risks and realities that people experiencing homelessness face every day,” Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe wrote in a statement.
“We know that many are facing significant health concerns, including physical disabilities, mental-health challenges and substance-use issues.”
According to the data, 74% of the deaths were classified as accidental, followed by natural causes at 13% and deaths by suicide at 7%.
Of the accidental deaths, 87% were found to have been caused by illicit drug toxicity.
For the purposes of the reporting, an individual experiencing homelessness was defined as “a person living outdoors, in a makeshift shelter, a parked vehicle, or any other structure not intended for habitation; or a person staying at an emergency shelter (overnight) or temporarily sheltered (suspected to be for less than 30 days) by friends or family, in a short-term shelter, temporary modular housing, safe house for youth, or transition house for women and children fleeing violence.”
People residing in short-term shelters, safe houses or transition houses for an unknown length of time were included.
The communities with the highest number of deaths are Vancouver, Surrey and Victoria.
According to the report, men made up the vast majority of those who died while experiencing homelessness, at 83%, and the most common age was between 30 and 59, at 72% of all reported deaths.
