About this presentation
Municipal responses to encampments can be a matter of life and death for people experiencing homelessness, many of whom rely on encampments for shelter, safety, community, and mutual aid. Historically, responses to unsheltered homelessness in Canada have relied on neo-vagrancy bylaws and other regulatory approaches that criminalize survival in public space. At the same time, recent years have seen growing recognition of the Right to Housing (RtH) in Canada, including its recognition through federal legislation.
This presentation draws on a community-engaged research project examining municipal encampment responses across Ontario. The project includes a review of neo-vagrancy bylaws and encampment protocols in 44 Ontario municipalities, as well as surveys with 105 people with lived experience residing in encampments.
Focusing on experiences of encampment evictions, this presentation examines the harms caused by forced displacement. We argue that encampment evictions produce harms across all five pillars of a human rights-based approach to homelessness: decentring policing and law enforcement, meeting basic needs, ensuring accessible services, supporting meaningful participation, and upholding Indigenous rights. In doing so, we position forced displacement as a profound violation of the right to housing and related human rights.
This presentation draws on a community-engaged research project examining municipal encampment responses across Ontario. The project includes a review of neo-vagrancy bylaws and encampment protocols in 44 Ontario municipalities, as well as surveys with 105 people with lived experience residing in encampments.
Focusing on experiences of encampment evictions, this presentation examines the harms caused by forced displacement. We argue that encampment evictions produce harms across all five pillars of a human rights-based approach to homelessness: decentring policing and law enforcement, meeting basic needs, ensuring accessible services, supporting meaningful participation, and upholding Indigenous rights. In doing so, we position forced displacement as a profound violation of the right to housing and related human rights.
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At the centre of this, we must rely on a human rights approach.
While we can always do better than these minimum standards, we should never do worse than these basic requirements. |
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Realizing the Right: Municipal Policy Responses to Encampments
This project is titled Realizing the Right: Municipal Policy Responses to Encampments. This project focuses on applying a human rights lens to municipal encampment responses, using a community-engaged approach. As such, this work has been deeply informed by the ongoing contributions of the project advisory team, which includes people with and without lived experience of homelessness.
This research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) through an Insight Development Grant. Our research takes place in Hamilton, on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas, the Haudenosaunee, the Erie, the Attawandaron, and the Wendat, as well as in Waterloo Region, on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, and Chonnonton peoples. Both places are home to Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island. Taking a housing justice approach requires us to work toward addressing ongoing settler colonialism, which displaces Indigenous peoples from their lands and contributes to experiences of housing precarity and homelessness.
This research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) through an Insight Development Grant. Our research takes place in Hamilton, on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas, the Haudenosaunee, the Erie, the Attawandaron, and the Wendat, as well as in Waterloo Region, on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinaabe, and Chonnonton peoples. Both places are home to Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island. Taking a housing justice approach requires us to work toward addressing ongoing settler colonialism, which displaces Indigenous peoples from their lands and contributes to experiences of housing precarity and homelessness.
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Rethinking Municipal Policy Responses to Encampments:
Building a Human Rights Approach in Ontario
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The goal of this report is to provide guidance on what a human rights-based approach to homeless encampments might look like at the municipal level, as well as assess to what extent existing municipal policy responses reflect a rights-based approach. To do so we explored neo-vagrancy bylaws and encampment protocols in all Ontario municipalities over 70,000 residents, in 2023 and 2024. There are some important limitations to assessing municipal encampment approaches through written policy documents. Bylaws and protocols do not tell us about the enforcement and implementation of policies, or the lived impacts of policies on people experiencing homelessness. However, bylaws and protocols are an important starting place as they are key documents that guide local responses to encampments and are important places where a human rights approach should be reflected
To assess municipal bylaws and protocols, we used existing human rights documents on homelessness to develop a human rights policy framework that is built on five pillars: decentring policing and law enforcement, addressing conditions in encampments and meeting basic needs; equitable and accessible service provisioning; meaningful participation of people living in encampments; and recognition of Indigenous rights.
We found that all single tier and lower tier municipalities we examined had some form of neo-vagrancy bylaw in place that criminalized survival behaviour of people experiencing homelessness, including those living in encampments. In contrast, only 13 municipalities had publicly available encampment protocols, limiting transparency and public accountability. Among municipalities that have published encampment protocols, the adoption of a human rights–based approach is uneven, both between municipalities and across the five pillars of this framework. Some municipalities are beginning to implement innovative, rights-aligned strategies, such as multi-sectoral outreach teams and new models of service delivery, to better support people living in encampments. However, more work needs to be done to approach encampments as a human rights issue, rather than a bylaw enforcement issue. Many protocols rely on enforcement-based responses which can undermine trust and relationship building with people staying in encampments, making it more difficult to connect individuals with housing and resources. Across most protocols, there is limited attention to meaningful participation of encampment residents in designing and implementing approaches as well as recognition and reconciliation of Indigenous Rights, leaving significant gaps in realizing a truly rights-based approach. |
