Realizing the Right:
​Municipal Policy Responses to Encampments

Project Outputs
​This research project is called “Realizing the Right: Municipal Policy Responses to Encampments”. Funded through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Realizing the Right is a multi-year community-engaged project focused on understanding of how Ontario municipalities are responding to encampments. The project is made up of:
  • An Ontario-wide review of all neo-vagrancy bylaws and protocols in municipalities with populations over 80,000;
  • A review of legal cases concerning encampments in Ontario; and
  • The Realizing the Right Encampment Survey of people with direct experience staying in encampments in Waterloo Region and Hamilton. 
Thank you to the Realizing the Right project advisory committee: Regan Sunshine Brussé, Shabeeh Ahmad, Jammy Loch, Mauleek Bhatt, Sidney Macdonald, David Alton, and Erin Dej for your ongoing and invaluable contributions.

We also appreciate the hard work of research assistants, Valentina Orlenas and Sebastian McPherson. We received funding for this project from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and appreciate this support.

We very deeply appreciate the many informal conversations with community members who have experienced homelessness and housing precarity. These conversations have helped shape our views on these issues and clearly reminded us that policy documents always only tell a part of the story.

Human Rights & Housing Fights:

Rethinking Municipal Approaches

As presented on November 28, 2025 by Laura Pin, Mauleek Bhatt, and Sidney Macdonald to the Waterloo Wellington Human Services and Justice Coordinating Committee

Human Rights & Housing Fights:

Municipal Encampment Responses

As presented by Dr. Laura Pin on September 25, 2025 in Saint John, NB at Kent theatre  Sponsored by the Housing Mobilization and Engagement Research Lab, the Human Development Council, and Fresh Start Services
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​Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness: Conference & Trip - ​Ottawa 2024

Waterloo Region Snapshot

This research snapshot was compiled by
​Dr. Laura Pin, Regan Sunshine Brussé, and Dr. Erin Dej in July 2025.
The survey was developed by the project advisory team which includes academic researchers, people with lived experience (PWLE) of homelessness, and people with connections to local homelessness service providing organizations. Many project advisors have expertise that draws on multiple categories.  

This research snapshot shares our preliminary findings from the encampment survey from people with experience staying in encampments in Waterloo Region exclusively.