VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Critics feel the federal government’s new crime bill will have plenty of consequences. A local advocate for the homeless warns we can expect a dramatic increase in the number of people living on our streets.

Sean Condon with Megaphone Magazine says Canada’s crime rate is the lowest it’s been since 1973. Instead of reducing crime further, Condon says this bill will cause our prison population to explode without addressing the root causes of crime.

“We know that in federal prisons, about 80 per cent of the inmates have addiction issues. There’s nothing in these bills that look at how we can address that,” he explains.

He points to a recent study out of Toronto that showed 20 per cent of people in prison were homeless when they were arrested. “When they were going to leave prison, a full one-third of them said they were going to enter a homeless shelter and about 12 per cent of them said that they had no idea where they were going to go after.”

Condon says the numbers prove the prison system doesn’t help people get off the street, and is in fact pushing more into homelessness.