We need housing solutions to save lives now. Saskatchewan has some of the highest rates of people living unhoused, while also having some of the bitterest weather in the country. Saskatoon identified 1,931 people living on the streets in 2025 (and many people working to help those individuals say the actual number is much higher). Saskatoon’s homeless numbers are the same as the population of the entire town of Watrous; for me, it was worth driving to that community once more to really put this into a quantifiable amount of housing stock needed. Regina recorded 824 people living unhoused in 2024, which was nearly double the previous count there. To put this into perspective, that translates to 5 people out of every thousand residents in these communities living on the streets. This crisis has developed directly due to the SaskParty government’s failure to provide adequate social services to help those in need.

The First People of Turtle Island are severely overrepresented in our unhoused population here in Saskatchewan. Indigenous people make up 12% of our province’s total population. However, of the number of people who are homeless in Saskatoon alone, 83% are Indigenous people. It bears repeating that one of the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was the Right to Adequate Housing.

I would also like to point out that encampments are not caused by unhoused individuals. They are caused by capitalism. Instead of society’s constant complaining about homeless people, we should be collectively enraged by the unlivable economy that we are in, that leaves so many falling through the cracks. We need to be furious with those hoarding wealth! We need to demand checks and balances in our out-of-control housing market – it’s impossibly expensive to keep a roof over anyone’s head right now. And the systemic racism built into all these systems – call out this ugly core of the homelessness in Saskatchewan!

Instead of offering actual solutions to help people, the city of Saskatoon decided that unhoused folk should be victimized again by eliminating an encampment that was providing community and a place where community support could find and help people. The dismantling of this encampment had to be stopped by awake community activists. 

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being, which explicitly includes housing. 

For many homeless people, poor health leads to the need for repeated access to hospitals or to other medical care. Saskatchewan is going into a Healthcare strike as the weather turns poor. If the SaskParty doesn’t work with our healthcare workers to resolve this, the most vulnerable members of our society will suffer the consequences. 

Winter is coming, and no one, not one single person, should ever be left out in the cold in our Province of Saskatchewan. Do better, SaskParty.

Naomi Hunter,
Saskatchewan Green Party Leader