We’ve been counting them and governments have been scrambling to try to help them, but a recent university study has been looking at a new question about homeless people in B.C. — what each one costs taxpayers a year.
The answer is $55,000 per person, or an annual total of $644.3 million in health, corrections and social services spending for all the homeless in B.C.
But the conclusion of the 150-page report — written by five academics at Simon Fraser University, the University of B.C. and the University of Calgary — is that B.C. taxpayers could even save money if that cash was instead spent directly on supported social housing.
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