Homeless numbers need to reflect the city’s reality

Any policy wonk will tell you that good policy relies on accurate numbers.

But when the metrics we use to measure a crisis are flawed, the solutions we build to address it will inevitably fall short.

This is the dangerous reality facing Brandon following the release of Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation’s latest homelessness data.

On paper, the city appears to be making progress. The most recent Point-in-Time (PiT) count, which was taken one day last fall, showed a 10 per cent drop in the number of individuals experiencing homelessness — down to 205 people from 229 the previous year.

That mirrors data from the Homeless Individuals and Families Information System (HIFIS) — a database that tracks homelessness in the city — which earlier this year reported an 11 per cent decrease overall in 2026.

If these numbers reflected reality, Brandon would have cause to celebrate. But those working on the front lines disagree. Rebecca Anhalt, a senior data analyst with HIFIS, says there are concerns that some people living in encampments were missed in the PiT count — a situation that may have skewed the numbers.

According to the report, the city cleared several encampments shortly before the PiT count took place in November 2025. Displacing people right before a census doesn’t solve homelessness. It simply scatters the population, making them impossible to count. By dismantling these communities, the city — perhaps inadvertently — erased them from the record.

Second, as the CBC reported, Brandon lacks a dedicated daytime drop-in centre. Without a central day shelter, service providers have no way of knowing what people are doing to survive during the day, or where they go. This absence of a baseline gathering point creates a structural blind spot that heavily skews data collection.

The most damning evidence against the reported “drop” comes from the service providers themselves. While the official count fell, the number of individuals relying on warming spaces, transitional facilities and homelessness services rose by 76 per cent. HIFIS data also suggests that unsheltered homelessness — those people sleeping in cars, abandoned buildings or on the streets — actually surged by 25 per cent over the last year.

Our emergency shelters, like the Samaritan House Ministries Safe and Warm Shelter, are consistently operating near maximum capacity — even as provincial infrastructure is struggling under the weight of demand. CBC recently reported that there are 1,113 approved applicants on the wait list for a Manitoba Housing unit in Brandon, with 103 of the city’s 525 units currently vacant.

When funding from higher levels of government is tied directly to population reports, artificially low numbers have real-world consequences. A 10 per cent drop on a spreadsheet signals to provincial and federal officials that the crisis is stabilizing, which risks stalling the roll-out of much-needed resources — like the second provincial tenant services co-ordinator Brandon has been desperately waiting for.

Conversely, artificially inflated numbers would also paint an inaccurate picture of the homelessness situation in Brandon. And if there are genuine successes, we should be able to celebrate them — not have just cause to question them.

An accurate count is not an academic exercise. It dictates how many beds are funded, how many housing co-ordinators are hired and how much money is funnelled into recovery programs.

Brandon’s front-line organizations — including the Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation, the Brandon Friendship Centre and the Bear Clan — are doing solid work to adapt to the needs of the city.

But working with incomplete or untrustworthy data will not help the situation. The City of Brandon and its provincial partners need to re-evaluate how they track homelessness in our community. We must account for “hidden homelessness” like couch-surfing and avoid disruptive camp evictions right before census windows.

Until our data reflects the true scope of the situation on the streets, any strategy to end homelessness in Brandon will be based on math that simply doesn’t add up.