How Much Does Homelessness Cost Vancouver Each Year
- Meera Gill
- Aug 4
- 2 min read
Updated: Oct 22
How much does Vancouver spend on homelessness? It's one of the city’s most persistent and visible challenges and also one of the most expensive.
In 2024, the City of Vancouver estimated it spent $46.7 million per year in the Downtown Eastside on programs and services related to homelessness, mental illness, and addiction.
What Vancouver Spends
Here’s how that $46.7 million breaks down:
Community Services - $21.5 million: This includes funding for inner-city social service centres, grants to non-profits focused on homelessness, and staffing for the city’s homelessness services department.
It also includes a grant to Vancouver Coastal Health for mental health and substance use programs, as well as funding for low-barrier employment initiatives like street vending.
Vancouver Fire Rescue Services - $10.8 million: This portion covers the cost of overdose response and fire calls related to mental health and addiction, plus the work of the “urban issues team” that inspects single-room occupancy (SRO) buildings.
Engineering Services - $9.1 million: This includes operational costs like flushing and cleaning sidewalks, collecting abandoned items, enforcing bylaws, and funding micro-cleaning initiatives run by non-profits.
Parks and Recreation - $5.3 million: These funds are used for managing overnight sheltering in parks, providing daytime park services, and handling repairs and janitorial work.
These costs reflect only the city’s spending. They do not include what the provincial or federal governments contribute.
In 2022, the Vancouver Police Department released a separate report estimating that $5 billion per year was being spent by governments and charities citywide on services for vulnerable residents.
The Downtown Eastside was a key focus of that report. According to the data, around $406 million per year in charitable funding alone went to organizations based in that neighborhood. That works out to over $1 million per day.
Dr. Alina Turner, co-founder of HelpSeeker, told Business Intelligence, that the data had limitations but said it was useful as a starting point. Police Chief Adam Palmer pointed to the report as evidence that while there is significant funding in the system, the way it is used may not be delivering the best results for the people who need it.
Vancouver City Council continues to debate how best to assess the effectiveness of these investments. In 2024, Councillor Brian Montague successfully passed a motion to create a comprehensive list of non-profit and NGO service providers in the Downtown Eastside, including their funding sources and outcomes.
Others on council disagreed. Councillor Rebecca Bligh called the motion a “colossal waste of time,” arguing that the problem isn’t the services but rather poverty, housing insecurity, and untreated health conditions.
Final Thoughts: How Much Does Homelessness Cost Vancouver
When you ask how much homelessness costs Vancouver, the most concrete figure is the city’s own: $46.7 million annually in operating expenses within the Downtown Eastside alone.
But that number sits within a much larger financial landscape. Across Metro Vancouver, total annual spending—by governments and charities—may reach into the billions, with charitable investments in the Downtown Eastside alone estimated at about $406 million per year
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