Human RIghts & Housing Fights

Human Rights-Based Responses to Encampments
​Following the 100 Victoria Court Ruling 


​Re: Human Rights-Based Responses to Encampments Following the 100 Victoria Court Ruling

​Dear Members of the Community and Health Services Committee,

In light of the recent Ontario Superior Court ruling concerning the encampment at 100 Victoria St. N., we are writing as researchers leading the project Realizing the Right: Municipal Policy Responses to Encampments to share findings from our work and urge the Region adopt a safe tenting protocol grounded in human rights principles.
"Forced displacement isn't just about losing a place to stay in the immediate term. The harms of it are wide-reaching and they really affect every aspect of a person experiencing homelessness and their lives."
- “I Think It’s Bullshit”: Encampment Evictions and the Criminalization of Homelessness - Human Rights & Housing Fights
The recent court decision makes it clear that municipal responses to encampments cannot rely primarily on prohibitions and displacement. The Court reaffirmed that when there are insufficient accessible alternatives, attempts to prohibit sheltering outdoors violates Charter-protected rights to life, liberty, security of the person, and equality.

Our report Rethinking Municipal Responses to Encampments: Building a Human Rights Approach in Ontario explores municipal encampment responses across Ontario and identifies five core pillars of a human rights-based approach to encampments:
  1. Decentring policing and enforcement;
  2. Addressing basic needs and conditions in encampments;
  3. Ensuring equitable and accessible services;
  4. Supporting meaningful participation of encampment residents in decision-making; and
  5. Recognizing Indigenous rights.​
" ..."
- Source

At the same time, in the report we identify several promising practices from municipalities across Ontario. The City of London’s Service Depot model provides one example of a more rights-aligned approach. Through mobile service delivery located directly near encampments, London has improved access to water, food, hygiene supplies, harm reduction supports,  washrooms, outreach services, and fire safety resources. The report notes that this model is effective because it reduces transportation barriers and allows people to access supports without risking the loss or destruction of belongings.

Similarly, municipalities such as London, Thunder Bay, and Toronto have adopted policy language that explicitly recognizes that homelessness is not illegal and that services must remain voluntary and grounded in self determination. These approaches acknowledge that people cannot be forced into services or shelter arrangements that are unsafe, inaccessible, or inappropriate for them.

In light of both the evolving legal landscape and the findings of this research, we urge the Region of Waterloo to develop a safe tenting protocol - a course of action already supported by 1800 community members. Such a protocol should begin with the recognition that encampments are a consequence of systemic housing failure, not individual wrongdoing. A meaningful safe tenting protocol should clearly designate appropriate and accessible tenting locations and include several additional elements.​
  1. The Region should minimize the role of police and bylaw enforcement in encampment responses and prioritize outreach-led, health-based, and relationship-centered approaches.
  2. The protocol should establish clear standards for meeting basic needs within encampments, including access to sanitation, drinking water, garbage collection, fire safety resources, harm reduction supplies, healthcare access, and mobile service delivery.
  3. The Region should prioritize accessible and inclusive service provision to people staying in encampments, within a framework that avoids coercive practices and recognizes encampment residents’ right to self-determination.
  4. The Region should meaningfully involve people with lived experience of homelessness and encampments in the drafting, implementation, and evaluation of any encampment policy.
  5. The Region should work collaboratively with Indigenous organizations and Indigenous service providers to ensure that encampment responses are informed by Indigenous rights, reconciliation commitments, and Indigenous-led approaches to housing and homelessness.​

​The findings of Rethinking Municipal Responses to Encampments make clear that municipalities can move toward more equitable, effective, and compassionate responses even within broader structural constraints. A safe tenting protocol is not a substitute for deeply needed investments in housing and social supports. However, it is an essential measure to reduce preventable harms, support dignity and safety, and ensure policy is aligned with human rights and Charter obligations.
Thank you for your attention to this matter. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss this research further or support future work concerning the development of a human rights-based encampment response framework in Waterloo Region.
​Sincerely,
Laura Pin, Associate Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University
Erin Dej, Associate Professor, Wilfrid Laurier University
Regan Sunshine Brussé, Social Justice Advocate

On behalf of the Realizing the Right research team.

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Human Rights & Housing Fights

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from this recently featured presentation:​

“I Think It’s Bullshit”:
Encampment Evictions and the Criminalization of Homelessness
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.
​CAEH Conference Ottawa 2024

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.

Rethinking Municipal Policy Responses to Encampments:
​Building a Human Rights Approach in Ontario
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.