At least here in vancouver, if you go to east hastings almost every single homeless person is either white or indigenous, despite the official data saying something different. I know why indigenous face these issues, but why so many white people? Is it because most of them originated in a rural area and moved here? The homeless demographic looks completely different than the demographic of the city itself.

Hop the border to seattle and it seems like homeless people are usually black or latino, which makes a lot more logical sense to me.

  • jaselle@lemmy.ca
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    6 days ago

    I think it’s pretty rare for recent immigrants (first gen, and second gen to a lesser extent) to end up homeless in canada, since they usually are well off financially or have family that can support them. Impoverished people don’t travel internationally. Most non-white non-indigenous people here have been here for only a few decades. Chinese and HK immigrants go back further, but it tracks as there are a number of chinese homeless too.

    (Other ethnic groups also immigrated in past centuries but not to huge populations.)

    Unlike the US, Vancouver doesn’t have a large black population, and the latinx population is not huge either (I mean think about it, we have like 1 good mexican restaurant.)

    I am not an expert, just hypothesising.