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Background: What are
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Neo-vagrancy bylaws are rules made by a municipal government that criminalize survival behaviours commonly engaged in by people experiencing homelessness or poverty.(5) Neo-vagrancy bylaws are an adapted colonial and colonizing import that derive from the English Poor Law system which seeks to confine, regulate and criminalize poverty and displacement that emerged after widespread enclosure of lands that had been previously used in common (6). Neo-vagrancy bylaws often include rules prohibiting sleeping, resting, and/or loitering in public, obstructing public spaces, and erecting shelters, like tents, in public spaces. Other neo-vagrancy bylaws may involve prohibitions on cooking outdoors, soliciting funds in public (‘panhandling’), or behaviour labelled as ‘disorderly’. (7)
Neo-vagrancy bylaws raise serious human rights concerns because they can make it illegal for people to simply exist in public spaces or carry out basic survival activities such as resting, sleeping, cooking, or asking for money (8). Their enforcement is uneven, disproportionately targeting individuals experiencing homelessness who already face discrimination and stereotypes (9). As a result, neo-vagrancy bylaws have a direct and punitive impact on the daily lives of people experiencing homelessness, particularly those living in encampments.
This project also looked at municipal encampment protocols. We define encampment protocols as any public text, produced by a municipal government, that gives instructions on how municipal agencies, law enforcement, and service providers should respond to encampments. Unlike bylaws, which set out general rules, protocols go into more detail. They may explain how the rules are enforced, how services are provided, or how outreach workers should engage with people living in encampments. Both bylaws and protocols shape the methods and tools that municipalities use to respond to and otherwise interact with people experiencing homelessness. As documents that guide local responses to encampments, they are important places where a human rights approach should be reflected.
Limitations of Bylaws and Protocols
Bylaws and protocols can provide some information about municipal approaches to encampments. They can provide insight into the intended outcomes, priorities, and broader vision of the policy. Bylaws and protocols can also provide information about the extent to which human rights frameworks are built into official municipal guidelines.
However, there are some key limitations to assessing municipal encampment approaches through written policy documents, like bylaws and protocols. Neo-vagrancy bylaws and encampment protocols cannot fully assess:
While there are important limits to municipal neo-vagrancy bylaws and encampment protocols, they are still important documents that shape how local government and service providers interact with people experiencing homelessness. As a result, we take neo-vagrancy bylaws and encampment protocols as a crucial starting place for understanding how municipal policies affect the human rights of people experiencing homelessness and/or living in encampments. Written bylaws and protocols should not be where our inquiry ends, however, as there is a need to speak with community members, service providers, and diverse people with lived/living experience of homelessness to better understand how policy is experienced on the ground. (12)
Bylaws and protocols can provide some information about municipal approaches to encampments. They can provide insight into the intended outcomes, priorities, and broader vision of the policy. Bylaws and protocols can also provide information about the extent to which human rights frameworks are built into official municipal guidelines.
However, there are some key limitations to assessing municipal encampment approaches through written policy documents, like bylaws and protocols. Neo-vagrancy bylaws and encampment protocols cannot fully assess:
- How policies are implemented and enforced: There is often a gap between what is written, and how policies are executed on the ground, influenced by local actors, resources, or administrative capacities. (10)
- The lived effects of policies on people: How policies actually affect the day-to-day lives and decisions of people on the ground is rarely captured in written policy documents.
- The influence of unwritten norms: many important elements of policy implementation are unwritten or informal. Behind-the-scenes negotiations and administrative discretion significantly affect how a written policy is experienced. (11)
- The importance of other government policies and plans: Written encampment policies and neo-vagrancy bylaws usually contain limited information about the intersection of these documents with other operational strategies, such as broader municipal planning documents, policies of the provincial or federal governments or broader connections to, or inconsistencies in, upholding different Indigenous treaty rights.
While there are important limits to municipal neo-vagrancy bylaws and encampment protocols, they are still important documents that shape how local government and service providers interact with people experiencing homelessness. As a result, we take neo-vagrancy bylaws and encampment protocols as a crucial starting place for understanding how municipal policies affect the human rights of people experiencing homelessness and/or living in encampments. Written bylaws and protocols should not be where our inquiry ends, however, as there is a need to speak with community members, service providers, and diverse people with lived/living experience of homelessness to better understand how policy is experienced on the ground. (12)
Wooden skids at an encampment site located in a forested area in Waterloo Region