A federal count on homeless people will be updated by Christmas, the first revision in two years, says the Department of Infrastructure. It follows a Budget Office report pointing to a steady increase in the number of homeless.

“The next update is expected by late 2024,” the department wrote the Senate national finance committee. The last revision in 2022 counted 105,655 shelter users including 31,476 people who “experienced chronic homelessness,” said a National Shelter Study.

“The most recent version of the annual shelter study was in 2022,” Janet Goulding, senior assistant deputy infrastructure minister, earlier testified at the Senate committee. “According to that shelter study we have seen a change in the number of individuals who are chronically homeless. That number is growing.”

“We are seeing people sta