New Britain may be celebrating what it’s mayor said is the end of chronic homelessness in the city, but Democratic mayoral candidate Christopher Porcher is saying “not so fast.”

According to Mayor Erin Stewart, New Britain — as well as Plainville, Berlin, Bristol and Southington — no longer have any residents who have been on the streets for at least a year.

Chronic homelessness does not take into account those who have been without a permanent address for less than 365 days.

“I actually oversee a program that works with chronically homeless people,” Porcher said. “Over 100 people in our program that started are still actually homeless so I absolutely have to say that [report is] absolutely false.”

As of 2016, the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness (CCEH) said 158 people — with one-third of those individuals being adults with children — are without shelter.

New Britain, along with other cities like Hartford and Bridgeport, has some of the highest homelessness rate per capita in the state, according to the CCEH.

“It’s our responsibility to say listen, ‘yes, we’ve gotten people off the streets that were homeless, but we still have a lot of work to do for homeless people out there who are not meeting the state requirements,’” Porcher said. “Anyone can drive through the city and see that there’s homelessness still here.”

Porcher claimed that he has a plan to help combat the homelessness population — at least for those in New Britain.

“We need to work at a local level, a city level with our nonprofits, our local providers who provide services and we need to literally challenge the system,” Porcher said. “[We have to] use our state representatives, use our congressmen, bipartisanship. It takes a team effort to change this policy so that every homeless person is getting acknowledged.”

One of the greatest things Porcher emphasized was redefining the term “chronic homelessness” so that it also includes residents who have been on the streets for less than a year.

“What makes the statement irresponsible is really the issue in how we define homelessness,” Porcher said. “We still have people that are homeless, they just haven’t been homeless for 365 days out of the year.”

If elected Nov. 5, Porcher said that he would make aiding and redefining the city’s homelessness population a priority.

“We can’t just go off of this policy that makes us look like we cured homelessness because we haven’t,” Porcher emphasized. “New Britain is a beautiful city, a beautiful place but we have to own what we’re actually facing.”