Saskatoon’s homeless population is now roughly the size of Watrous

(Carla Shynkaruk / CTV News)

Saskatoon’s homeless population is now roughly the same size as the town of Watrous, and a new report is looking closer at last October’s Point in Time Count that found 1,931 people experiencing homelessness.

“The rising numbers points to the urgency that we have to respond. If we don’t provide services of some type for people to meet their basic needs, that’s where we start to see more issues in public spaces on the street,” said Lesley Anderson, the city’s director of planning and development.

The report was released Monday, following a count last October.

It shows 725 people are living on the street. Four-hundred and forty-four people are in some form of transitional housing, while 327 were in emergency shelters and another 237 were experiencing what’s called hidden homelessness — which encompasses couch surfing, staying with a friend or sleeping in an abandoned building.

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While the snapshot in time reveals a lot about Saskatoon’s homelessness picture, it may be an under representation of the real number.

“We are trying to find as many as possible,” Anderson said. “Generally, across the country, there’s the thought that it is an undercount in most situations. So, we know we’re missing people. And I think in particular, couch surfing is one of those ones that’s very hard to track.”

Anderson says it’s long been thought that people come to the city from smaller communities to seek services and may never end up back home, and that’s once again evident in the 2025 PiT count.

The report notes 83 per cent of people are Indigenous, which the city says points to systemic inequities and longstanding barriers to accessing safe and affordable housing.

When asked, 29.8 per cent of people said they have always lived in Saskatoon, 43 per cent have lived in Saskatoon for more than five years and 27.2 have lived in Saskatoon for less than five years.

“People come here to study, they come here for a medical, they come here to visit family -- and then for whatever reason, some people may not go back to where they came from, or they may choose to stay here,” Anderson said.

The 2025 PiT count differs from the one conducted in 2024, which counted 1,499 people.

Changes from the federal government, which is a partner in the count, asked municipalities to conduct the count every year. This year’s count was called an enumeration, which is a much smaller version of the full survey volunteers conducted in 2024, resulting in less time talking with each individual. The city will conduct the full survey every three years and will do its next one on 2027.

Anderson said this data will city responds and shapes policy moving forward, but its capacity is largely limited as the provincial and federal governments are typically responsible for social services.

“It’s generally been driving the discussion around how urgent we need to respond, why we need to do the things that we’re doing,” Anderson said.

Last year, there were 219 children aged from zero to 12 years old and 209 youth aged 13 to 24. In 2024, there were 315 children and 175 youth. Anderson says the drop might be attributed to more people moving from transitional housing into affordable housing.

When the data was initially discovered in 2024, Anderson said it ignited discussions.

“The growing number of children that we noted in 2024, they’re largely in transitional housing, but that was a new indicator to see that large population. And it did drive different discussions in the community,” she said.

Anderson says as the city continues to find places for drop-in centres and permanent shelters, the city is also putting more emphasis in affordable housing units. After signing on to the federal government’s Housing Accelerator Fund in 2024, Saskatoon approved 756 affordable housing units for development. Anderson says 298 of those have had permits issued.