Yukon NDP housing critic Kate White has raised the issue of homelessness more than once during the current session of the legislature – and countless other times in five fall sittings in a row.

But on Monday, she honed in on one point uttered by a cabinet minister last week when a class of Grade 5 students asked what the Yukon government is doing to address homelessness in the territory.

“The number of Yukoners who are homeless is unknown,” Health and Social Services Minister Mike Nixon said last Thursday.

The government has put forward initiatives to combat the issue of Yukoners without a home, such as the expanded Salvation Army shelter that will have 25 emergency beds and 22 transitional housing beds.

The question White posed Monday was simple: if the government does not know the number of homeless people, how can we be sure the 25 emergency beds will be enough?

“It’s late in the process of a multimillion-dollar investment for the minister to not know the number of emergency beds it should build,” White said.

“The member, in quoting me, is quite right – we simply don’t know the number of homeless people in the territory,” Nixon responded Monday.

“I don’t know what the member opposite expects us to do. Perhaps nothing is better than something in their view.”

In a request that the government produce more accurate data, White pointed out that the last known number of homeless was 100 – found from years-old studies conducted by non-government agencies.

Stacey Hassard, the minister responsible for the Yukon Housing Corp., addressed neither a need nor a lack of data on homeless populations, but pointed out the government has invested millions in housing for the territory.

“A good example of this was just a few short weeks ago, when we made an announcement with the Ta’an Kwäch’än about an investment in affordable housing with the First Nation,” Hassard said.

What Hassard failed to mention was that this particular development is partly for First Nation citizens and partly for those on the waitlist for social housing, not homeless residents specifically.

In the government’s Housing Action Plan released last June, there were several “challenges” listed to overcome that participants raised during the planning process.

“The homeless are often referred to as ‘hidden’ and there is limited understanding of the population and demographics inhabiting this end of the continuum,” the plan states.

Emergency shelters can become “oversubscribed,” with people staying for prolonged periods of time, the plan states – due to the lack of transitional housing options.

“This is the fifth fall sitting in a row that I have asked the government about adequate shelter for Yukon’s homeless,” White said.

“Apart from the as-yet-unbuilt Centre of Hope, the sum total of this government’s direct impact on homeless Yukoners is 10 mats to make sleeping on the floor that much more comfortable.”

The current Salvation Army shelter in Whitehorse has 16 beds but people will often sleep on floor mats, as the shelter has been known to be well over-capacity.

The Centre of Hope – right across the street from the current shelter – is expected to open in the spring.