The homeless “problem” is a direct outgrowth of the housing crisis.
The housing crisis is a direct outgrowth of housing “investors” jacking up prices and rents for 25+ consecutive years without a clear market crash.
The housing crisis can only be resolved with a return to affordability.
A return to affordability would see a housing crash of about 68% Canada-wide, with some markets (Vancouver, Kelowna, etc.) seeing valuation drops of 85% or more.
Remember: the one-third rule states that median housing payments (rent or mortgage) should not be more than one-third of median monthly income, but it also states that median home values should not be more than 3× median annual income.
The second half of that rule indicates that current home values in Kelowna alone - where median home values are just shy of $1M but median incomes as of the 2021 Statistics Canada poll are $35K - means that housing here is 28× that of annual income, or 9× more expensive than it should be.
So for a city like Kelowna to return to a sane and healthy housing market, values would have to crash by a MINIMUM of 89%.
This is what parasitical “investors” - mostly Greatest Generation and Boomers, but as of late no small number of GenX’ers - have done to the housing market.
This is why we are seeing a homeless crisis.