Towards just care: Envisioning disability and migrant justice-informed home care in Ontario


Megan Linton, Carleton University; Alana Hart, Trent University

Low-income older adults, disabled people, and immigrant direct care workers often experience institutionalized forms of care, such as long-term care facilities, as precarious, exploitive, and even violent; this was especially evident during the pandemic. As such, the need and demand for socially just, and community-driven home care services has never been more urgent. Yet, Canada’s existing home care systems are under-resourced and fragmented, leaving people with inadequate access to community and home care services provided by precarious workers. This paper presents reflections and findings from a community-based research project that brings together diverse and historically marginalized perspectives on home care from racialized low-income older adults, younger disabled people, and im/migrant workers to collaboratively “map” Ontario’s existing home care systems and develop new coalitions and visions for integrated and socially just home care options. Partnered with the Disability Justice Network of Ontario, the project is guided by the question: How can disability and migrant justice frameworks inform home care system reform in Ontario? Preliminary findings indicate the need to understand home care beyond the narrow, medical funding model categories and instead to analyze how the multiple social programs and privatized sectors that provide home-based personal support services intersect with the myriad labour, employment, and migration policies that govern home care workers. These reflections are inextricably linked to our community engagement that values people’s lived experiences as a form of expertise that leads to policy recommendations that better address the needs of low-income home care users and immigrant care workers in Ontario.

This paper will be presented at the following session: