homelessness on the radar.

The Canada West Foundation released a new survey on urban issues this morning...

The Looking West 2007 Survey finds that the majority of urbanites in western Canada and Toronto rate reducing homelessness as a high priority, and that they tend to favour increased affordable housing and increased programs and services for homeless people over an increase in shelter beds as a solution to homelessness. In addition, the survey finds that many urbanites feel that governments are doing a poor job addressing urban social issues such as poverty.

According to the survey, 68.8% of Edmontonians and 66.9% of Calgarians surveyed identified "reducing homelessness" as a 'very high priority' or 'high priority.' The survey also showed that only 17.6% of Edmontonians and 23.4% of Calgarians surveyed believed that governments were doing a 'good job' or 'very good job' addressing social issues (38.4% of Edmontonians and 34.9% of Calgarians surveyed believed that governments were doing a 'poor job' or 'very poor job' at addressing this issue).

Though I'm still fairly skeptical of surveys and polls, I do find these numbers quite interesting. With the affordable housing in Alberta becoming harder to find, I can only see this issue becoming more important in the future.

Read the survey here