The eight months in jail weren’t so bad for SpongeBob, but getting released back onto the streets in winter has been tough. “At least you’re warm, fed and inside when you’re in jail,” he says. It’s (absurdly) common for both prisons and hospitals in BC to release people straight into homelessness. More than 100 local people in the last point-in-time survey were homeless on the night of the survey as a result of being released from jail, and twice that many reported being homeless at that time because they had been released from hospital. “I’m hoping for housing, but I don’t want to be in supportive housing,” says SpongeBob. “That’s basically jail with less benefits.”