Prince George, B.C. – The Social Policy co-ordinator for Prince George, Chris Bone, doesn’t think the Auditor General’s negative report on how the Province is dealing with homelessness will hurt efforts in this city to deal with the issue.

“I think the initiative announced earlier this week which has several Ministries working together is an indication they had a jump on what was to come down and have acted on it” says Bone “Anytime you have multiple agencies and Ministries working together, that is a good thing.”

The Auditor General criticized the Province for not having any concrete idea on how many homeless thee are in B.C., therefore it would be next to impossible to determine if programs are having any impact on reducing those numbers. The criticism was contained in the report Homelessness:Clear Focus Needed.

In Prince George, Community Partners Addressing Homelessness conducted a survey last year to try and count the number of homeless in P.G., but Bone says the numbers could be off “There is no way to count the number of people who are staying with friends, or who are couch surfing, so getting an accurate count is very difficult because those people are not always visible.” Bone says regardless of that count, there are a lot of people who are not adequately housed.

The initiative announced earlier this week identified Prince George as one of five communities where services will be combined to  not only track the number of homeless, but to find housing and address a variety of needs including mental health and addictions issues. The announcement also promised 30 new housing “units” for Prince George. Fifteen of the new units will be at the Ketso Yoh men’s shelter, the locations of the other 15 have yet to be determined.

The Auditor General will be a guest on the Meisner program this morning at 9:00 on CFISFM 93.1 and here on Opinion250 through live streaming audio.