Close to 300 volunteers are fanning out across Vancouver for the city's annual homeless count.

Mayor Gregor Robertson is among the participants. He says he only counted five homeless in the Davie Village area.

"Anecdotally, there's certainly far fewer people than there were a few years ago.  The question is, compared to last year, did we make headway?  Hopefully we did.  There's been a lot of focus this year on getting shelters open through the winter."

The city's homeless advocate, Judy Graves, admits the problem may simply be moving to other areas.

She says she routinely finds people who used to be homeless in Vancouver in communities across Canada.

"I find people from Vancouver in the streets of Toronto and in the streets of Ottawa, and I would love to go to Winnipeg and St. John's and I'm sure I'll find Vancouver people there.  We're canadian and we love to travel and people on a low budget get stuck where they are."

Graves says that's why the federal government should be involved in funding shelters.