Vancouver Communauté Nouvelles

“Do what you can while you’re still standing.” That’s the advice seniors advocate Lorna Gibbs had for the crowd gathered at the South Vancouver Neighbourhood House Feb. 23, to celebrate her Medal of Good Citizenship awarded by Vancouver-Fraserview MLA Suzanne Anton, on behalf of Premier Christy Clark.

In an effort to get a point-in-time snapshot of the number of homeless people living in Metro Vancouver, volunteers took to the streets – and the water – to survey those who fall within the definition. But for some, the definition of ‘homeless’ can be complicated.

A local lawyer spends most of her volunteer hours as president of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada, BC & Yukon division. "I'm in my first year of a two-year term," said Roberta Stewart, a lawyer with Heather Sadler Jenkins in Prince George. Her practice includes corporate/commercial transactions and loans, residential conveyancing, wills and estate planning, and estates.

Karen can’t walk more than a few steps in the Uptown area of New Westminster without stopping to chat with someone she knows. It could be that she gave them a tissue, a cough drop or a cigarette when they needed one, or through her outreach activities she connected them with the services and housing that helped get their lives on track.

The forecast for early next week calls for cold, wet weather — and volunteers will be braving those conditions to count the number of people in the Langleys who don’t have a permanent roof over their heads. Homeless counts have taken place in Metro Vancouver every three years since 2002, and every year in Vancouver since 2010.

Days before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to tour Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, video has emerged of a pregnant woman overdosing in the neighbourhood. It shows the woman motionless on the ground near Hastings and Main, where she was first tended to by the Street Saviours, a volunteer outreach group that arrived at the scene before first responders.