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‘We’re people too’: Canada’s homeless population is aging, changing how shelters run

VANCOUVER — Seventy-one-year-old Roger Oake sat on a bench outside the Union Gospel Mission shelter in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside after breakfast.

He had been sleeping at the shelter for about a month “this time” and said that after several years of homelessness, walking “the beat” during the day when the shelter isn’t open has become harder as he gets older.

“I really don’t know where to even begin. There’s so many things that could or should change, but I really don’t know,” he said on Wednesday.

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