(EQS2) Responding to Homelessness and Hate

Homelessness in Canada is on the rise and its increasing visibility in communities is creating divisiveness, hate, and violence. Research suggests that people experiencing homelessness are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators1. These instances reveal the spectre of violence that unhoused people are faced with. Central to these challenges is the phenomenon of NIMBY-ism (“Not in my Backyard”) which describes the sentiments and actions of house residents to remove and exclude people experiencing homelessness from public spaces and the services that support them. How do we address NIMBY narratives, community tensions, and violence against unhoused peoples and move towards addressing the systemic factors that contribute to and sustain homelessness? How do we rethink these increasingly everyday encounters with homelessness as normative and not ‘out of joint’2? T Tags: Equality and Inequality, Home And Housing

Organizer: Jessica Braimoh, York University; Chair: Jessica Braimoh, York University

Presentations

Travis Hay, Mount Royal University; Mandi Gray, Trent University

Older People Experiencing Homeless in Alberta: Precarities, Public Policies, and Planning for the Future

The rate at which older people are experiencing homelessness is growing in Alberta and across Canada more broadly (Humphries and Canham, 2021; Milaney, Kamran, and Williams, 2020). The increasing problem of homelessness among older adults not only troubles aging populations but also poses specific challenges for policymakers and service providers. This demographic trend, characterized by the greying of homelessness, introduces complexities due to the diverse needs, medical issues, and precarities faced by older people experiencing homelessness (OPEH). In Alberta, this growing need for the development of services and policies for OPEH is complicated by a provincial socio-political economy in which neoliberalism and anti-harm reduction sentiments intersect to prevent, foreclose, or defund supportive housing models for OPEH that incorporate the principles and practices of harm reduction (Nixon and Burns, 2022). As a response, our research team undertook a larger policy analysis to identify how to best support OPEH with complex needs (including addiction). Towards this end, our four-pillar analysis centred upon 1) the housing and homelessness sector; 2) continuing care in Alberta; 3) federal and provincial approaches to harm reduction; and 4) the operation of Federal Indian policy. After conducting interviews with key experts and analyzing the role of provincial and federal policies, we produced five key recommendations seeking to secure a more robust set of supports for OPEH in Alberta: 1) consolidating current approaches to enumerating OPEH in Alberta using the age of 50 as a standard metric; 2) Freezing the age of eligibility for Old Age Security payments at 65; 3) Fully integrating harm reduction services within facility-based networks of continuing care in Alberta; 4) Acknowledging the risks of reliance on home-based continuing care for older people who are unhoused; and 5) Grounding emergent strategic frameworks to address OPEH within a consideration of federal Indian policy and the unique causes and contours of Indigenous homelessness. On the basis of these recommendations, we submit that Alberta (and, by extension, other Canadian provinces) has a dire need to adopt preventative approaches and develop comprehensive and coordinated policy responses for OPEH given the degree to which extant models of care and service provision can produce significant barriers for those at an advanced age. Emergent strategies, co-designed approaches, and policies must be advanced in close collaboration with diverse OPEH across stages of development. Therefore, this research project was also informed by and grounded in lived expertise through consultation with OPEH. The research team includes members who are directly involved with the kind of innovative, supportive housing models our research identified as lacking (e.g., models that anticipate the unique needs of OPEH). It is worth remembering that Alberta was an early adopter of ‘housing first’ models in Canada and our hope is that these collaborative research and knowledge mobilization activities will encourage the province to act as a leader in Canada in the realm of policy responses to older adult homelessness (rather than reproducing the social and structural forms of hate that put OPEH in precarious positions).

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Non-presenting authors: Lara Nixon, University of Calgary; Megan Beth Sampson, University of Calgary; Kaye Leatherdale, Lakehead University; Jes Annan, University of Calgary

Jayne Malenfant, McGill University

Building Responses Based in Care, Love, and Community: Combatting Hate and Fostering Housing Justice with Gender Diverse People

Gender-diverse people are over-represented in populations navigating homelessness, and housing precarity for Two-Spirit, trans, non-binary and other gender diverse peoples is often directly related to experiences of discrimination and hate. Despite an increasing recognition that the unique needs of gender diverse (broadly, 2SLGTBIA+) communities are important to consider in housing responses (including in the National Housing Strategy Act (2019)), there remains significant work to shift the spaces that gender diverse people navigate before, during, and following experiences of homelessness (Abramovich, 2011; Pyne, 2011). This paper will provide an overview of the trajectories that shape housing precarity and ongoing experiences of discrimination and hate for many gender diverse people in so-called Canada, with a focus on the intersections of two key systems that shape stability—housing and education. Drawing from a review of the literature, the authors—both gender-diverse people with lived experience of homelessness— will present key findings at the intersections of the education system and housing access that are highlighted by Two-Spirit, trans, and non-binary people as particular barriers to stability. Following this, and drawing from zines, academic articles, and gray/community literature, we will highlight some existing forms of community care, support, and action that have countered experiences of hate and harm, often standing in for the absence of access to supports offered to these communities by the State (Nelson et al., 2023). While our review has highlighted barriers for gender diverse people at many intersections of systems—including healthcare and criminal legal systems—we argue that schools and education are particularly fruitful to inform action. Trans youth are more likely to disengage from school to avoid navigating experiences of hate and violence (Shey, 2022), and school disengagement can be a key catalyst for cycles of housing precarity. In the current context of amplified hate and violence toward gender-diverse people in schools (EGALE, 2023), we will explore the potential of education to foster counter-responses, grounded in love, community care, and housing justice. Mirroring the NIMBY-ism found in the current housing landscape, calls to “Protect Children” from trans-inclusive practices are also grounded in a deep ignorance of the realities of gender diversity, and cause significant harm. We explore formal and informal opportunities to foster education for solidarity and understanding, as well as the ways that community-led education about housing rights and action may be an integral tool to build capacity and hold those in power accountable for failure to assure the housing rights of all gender diverse people.

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Non-presenting author: Alex Nelson, Western University

Jessica Braimoh, York University; Erin Dej, Wilfrid Laurier University; Naomi Nichols, Trent University

Challenging the Narrative on Homelessness

With approximately 35,000 people experiencing homelessness every night in Canada, we are facing a crisis that is destroying people’s lives, enabling divisive narratives within communities, and further entrenching marginality and social disadvantage. Although homelessness is becoming increasingly visible across communities in Canada, smaller suburban cities are facing an identity crisis given the changing context of homelessness. The desire many long-term residents have in smaller suburban communities to maintain ‘the old days’ comes up against changing economic, demographic, and social diversification realities. These changes are not going away. As homelessness becomes more visible, we see an increasing public frustration demands for someone (e.g., municipalities, law enforcement, service providers, and the government) ‘to do something’. In some communities, members of the public have weaponized misperceptions around homelessness to enact vigilante efforts at change[1] [1]. Such action deepens NIMBYISM, social exclusion, and hate. In this session we draw on the concept of ‘community resilience’ to consider how smaller suburban communities might shift the narrative away from homelessness, hate, and criminalization towards active strategies aimed at inclusion and belonging. Community resilience is a multi-dimensional, dynamic, and iterative process that involves collective awareness, action, reflection, adaptation, and social inclusion. Community resilience is influenced by social, cultural, and structural resources, constraints and opportunities. Central to developing community resilience is the ability to address sustainable, affordable housing, poverty reduction, and access to a continuum of healthcare and mental health resources. This paper emerges from current and past research conducted in small suburban communities. Reflecting on this work, we consider the following questions: How do we move from NIMBY to YIMBY? How do we mobilize support for community safety and resilience that challenges hate and NIMBY-ISM? What might meaningful and targeted community engagement look in small suburban communities? Throughout the presentation we engage in a call-and-answer style of conversation. Each question is posed to all authors who, drawing on their research and community work, provide insight into the challenges that exist for small suburban cities in their current responses to homelessness. Specifically, we consider how these responses to homelessness are tied to changing community identities, ongoing system failures, policy decisions, NIMBY-ISM, and systemic forms of oppression and exclusion. Keeping our unhoused neighbours at the forefront, this paper asks how we engage multiple stakeholders including scholars, practitioners, multiple levels of government, the public and those experiencing homelessness in strategies that build stronger places for us all to live.