Document Type
Article
English Abstract
This special issue brings together a collection of papers examining the legal dimensions of housing precarity. While we originally imagined a special issue focused on homelessness and human rights, we agree with our contributors that housing precarity sits along a disparate spectrum, with homelessness at one end. People weave in and out of living situations, whether in shelters, apartments, rooming houses, and encampments. Human rights, and their violation, are engaged at all stages of this spectrum. Yet this relationship has been underexamined in Canadian legal scholarship. The pieces in this issue contribute to an important conversation about the intersection of housing, human rights, and homelessness.
Citation Information
Flynn, Alexandra and Van Wagner, Estair.
"Introduction to the Special Issue on Housing Precarity and Human Rights."
Journal of Law and Social Policy
36.
(2023): 1-11.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.60082/0829-3929.1448
https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/jlsp/vol36/iss1/1
References
1 Leilani Farha & Kaitlin Schwan, (30 April 2020) at 2 [emphasis in original], online (PDF): The Shift [https://make-the-shift.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/A-National-Protocol-for-Homeless-Encampments-in-Canada.pdf] [perma.cc/ZEM7-VGDH] [Farha & Schwan, "National Protocol"].
2 Anna Lund, "Intersections between Precarious Housing and Residential Tenancy Law: A Review of A Complex Exile and Recent Legal Scholarship on Residential Tenancies" in this volume.
3 Nicholas Blomley, Alexandra Flynn & Marie-Eve Sylvestre, "Governing the Belongings of the Precariously Housed: A Critical Legal Geography" (2020) 16 Annual Review of Law and Social Science 165-181. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-021020-105357
4 Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, "Canadian Definition of Homelessness" (2012) at 1, online (pdf): HomelessHub [https://www.homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/attachments/COHhomelessdefinition-1pager.pdf] [perma.cc/XNT6-SG69].
5 Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, "Canadian Definition of Homelessness: What's being done in Canada and elsewhere?" (n.d.), online (pdf): HomelessHub [https://www.homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/attachments/BackgroundCOHhomelessdefinition.pdf] [perma.cc/B687-4CYZ].
6 "Definition of Indigenous Homelessness in Canada" (Toronto: Canadian Observatory on Homelessness Press, 2017) at 6, online (pdf): [www.homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/COHIndigenousHomelessnessDefinition.pdf] [perma.cc/6C42-R8EA]
7 Ibid at 8.
8 Ibid.
9 Employment and Social Development Canada, "Everyone Counts 2018: Highlights - Preliminary Results from the Second Nationally Coordinated Point-in-Time Count of Homelessness in Canadian Communities" (2019), online: Government of Canada [https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2019/edsc-esdc/Em12-25-2018-eng.pdf] [perma.cc/G9GT-3PSQ].
10 "The Colonialism of Eviction" in this volume.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
13 "Homeless Encampments: A Philosophical Justification" in this volume [Skolnik, "Homeless Encampments"]; Christopher Essert, "Property and Homelessness" (2016) 44 Phil & Pub Aff 266. See also Terry Skolnik, "Homelessness and Unconstitutional Discrimination" (2019) 15 J L & Equality 69.
14 "'Somebody's street': Eviction of Homeless Encampments as a Reflection of Interlocking Colonial and Class Relations" in this volume.
15 Admin, "Remembering Those Lost to Homelessness" (21 December 2018), online: National Coalition for the Homeless [https://nationalhomeless.org/category/mortality/] [perma.cc/AR7E-TPEZ].
16 Erika Khandor & Kate Mason, "The Street Health Report" (Toronto: Street Health, 2007) at 4, online (pdf): The Wellesley Institute [https://www.wellesleyinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/Street-Health-Report-2007.pdf] [perma.cc/3ZHE-8ZGQ].
17 Melissa Perri, Naheed Dosani & Stephen W. Hwang, "COVID-19 and People Experiencing Homelessness: Challenges and Mitigation Strategies" (2020) 192:26 Canadian Medical Assoc J E716. https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.200834
18 Lucie Richard et al, "Testing, Infection and Compliance Rates of COVID-19 Among People with a Recent History of Homelessness In Ontario, Canada: A Retrospective Cohort Study" (2021) 9:1 CMAJ Open E1 at E6. https://doi.org/10.9778/cmajo.20200287
19 Perri, Dosani & Hwang, supra note 17 at E716.
20 SC 2019, c 29 s 313 [National Housing Strategy Act].
21 Martha Jackman, "The Protection of Welfare Rights Under the Charter" (1988) 20 Ottawa L Rev 257 at 326.
22 "National Protocol", supra note 1 at 2.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid at 3.
29 Ibid.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.
34 Leilani Farha, Report of the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing as a Component of the Right to an Adequate Standard of Living, and on the Right to Non-Discrimination in this Context, UNGAOR, 73d Sess, UN Doc A/73/310/Rev.1, (2018) at para 26, cited in ibid.
35 "National Protocol", supra note 1 at 3.
36 Ibid at 4 [correcting misnumbering in original].
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid.
42 Ibid.
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid.
45 Alexandra Flynn et al, "Overview of Encampments Across Canada: A Right to Housing Approach" (2022), online (pdf): Homeless Hub [www.homelesshub.ca/resource/overview-encampments-across-canada-right-housing-approach] [perma.cc/SLL7-82S7].
46 2008 BCSC 1363 [Adams I].
47 Ibid at paras 7-10.
48 See ibid at paras 11-14.
49 Ibid at para 239.
50 See ibid at paras 37-66.
51 See Victoria (City) v Adams, 2009 BCCA 563 at paras 160-166 [Adams II].
52 Ibid at para 166.
53 See Delaney McCarten et al, "Trespassing on the Right to Housing: A Human Rights Analysis of the City of Toronto's Response to Encampments During COVID-19" (December 2021) at 41, online: Environmental Justice and Sustainability Clinic, Osgoode Hall Law School [https://ejsclinic.info.yorku.ca] [perma.cc/B4MX-X9FU].
54 See Sanctuary et al v Toronto (City) et al, 2020 ONSC 6207 [Sanctuary]; Black et al v City of Toronto, 2020 ONSC 6398; Poff v City of Hamilton, 2021 ONSC 7224; Bamberger v Vancouver (Board of Parks and Recreation), 2022 BCSC 49; Prince George (City) v Stewart, 2021 BCSC 2089; Vancouver Fraser Port Authority v Brett, 2020 BCSC 1368; Clinique Juridique Itinérante c. Procureur Général du Québec, 2021 QCCS 182 [Clinique].
55 It is worth noting that though it did not culminate in a major decision on the issue, in Hamilton the combined efforts of Keeping Six, HAMSMaRT, the Hamilton Community Legal Clinic and Wade Poziomka successfully received a temporary injunction against an encampment clearing in July/August 2020. "Community updates" (2020), online: Hamilton Justice [hamiltonjustice.ca/en/encampment-advocacy/] [perma.cc/5JPL-DWYS]. The City reached an agreement with these groups to end the injunction in October. Dan Taekema & Samantha Craggs, "Court battle over Hamilton tent encampments expected to drag on for days" (19 October 2021), online: CBC News [cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/encampments-1.6215671] [perma.cc/85TN-X2R4].
56 See Sanctuary, supra note 55 at paras 6-7.
57 See ibid at paras 214-216.
58 Ibid at paras 68-75.
59 See Clinique, supra note 55 at para 9.
60 See ibid at para 10.
61 See Bamberger v Vancouver (Board of Parks and Recreation), 2022 BCSC 49 at paras 63-64.
62 See ibid at para 150.
63 George (City) v Stewart, 2021 BCSC 2089 [Stewart].
64 Ibid at para 84.
65 Ibid at para 81.
66 See ibid at paras 67-68, 73.
67 See ibid at para 73.
68 Prince George (City) v Johnny, 2022 BCSC 282 [Johnny]. 69 Braimoh, Dej & Sanders, supra note 14.
70 Supra note 10.
71 National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health, "Housing as a Social Determinant of First Nations, Inuit and Metis Health" (2017), online (pdf): [www.ccnsa-nccah.ca/docs/determinants/FS-Housing-SDOH2017-EN.pdf] [perma.cc/WB4H-CPZC] at 1.
72 Thistle, supra note 6 at 26.
73 Alan B. Anderson, "Socio-Demographic Profile of the Aboriginal Population of Saskatoon" in Anderson ed, Home in the City: Urban Aboriginal Housing and Living Conditions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013) 43 at 74. 74 A Complex Exile: Homelessness and Social Exclusion in Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2020).
75 Supra note 2.
76 "When Should Publicly Owned Land Be Considered Private in Homeless Encampment Cases? A Critique of Recent Developments in BC" in this volume.
77 "Homeless Encampments", supra note 13.
78 "Property Says No: Relational (In)Equality, Encampments, and Property Rights" in this volume.
79 Ibid.
80 Ibid.
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