History
This decade is known as the beginning of modern homelessness in Canada, marked by factory closures, rising rents, and overcrowded shelters.
What are the 1980s?
This group makes up 13% of Quebec’s unhoused population, despite being only a small percentage of the general population, showing ongoing colonial violence.
Who are Indigenous peoples?
This common municipal strategy includes fines, ticketing, and displacement used to manage homelessness instead of solving it.
What is the criminalization of homelessness?
This fundamental right is violated when people are evicted without safe alternatives, despite being recognized in Canadian and UN standards.
What is the right to adequate housing?
This national body reviewed encampment practices and called for harm-reduction, rights-based approaches instead of evictions.
What is the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC)?
During this major economic crisis in the 1930s, homelessness surged, leading to relief camps and soup kitchens, although the government still called it “temporary.”
What is the Great Depression?
Nearly 30% of Quebec’s unhoused population have experienced this government-run institution, reflecting failures in child welfare.
What is youth protection?
This form of eviction tactic violates human rights standards by removing access to water, sanitation, and waste services in encampments.
What is the withdrawal of basic needs?
This term describes the idea that public spaces like parks and sidewalks are policed in ways that exclude unhoused people while protecting businesses and tourism.
What is the politics of public space? What is spatial exclusion?
These small, private housing units offer dignity, stability, and support as a transition away from homelessness.
What are shipping-container housing units?
This post-war period (roughly 1940–1970) saw the lowest rates of homelessness because housing was affordable and government benefits increased.
What is the post–World War II economic boom?
This community represents about 16% of the unhoused population and faces housing discrimination, unsafe shelters, and transphobic or homophobic barriers.
Who are 2SLGBTQIA+ people?
This common excuse (often based on bylaw violations) is used by cities to justify encampment dismantlement.
What is citing safety concerns?
These items are frequently lost during encampment removals, stripping people of safety and stability.
What are essential belongings?
Partnering with these organizations is essential for resisting colonial patterns and ensuring culturally safe support for unhoused Indigenous residents.
What are Indigenous-led organizations?
This national plan was introduced in 2017 to fund affordable housing, although its rollout has been slow compared to rising demand.
What is the National Housing Strategy?
The rapid rise from 5,789 unhoused people in 2018 to nearly 10,000 in 2022 in Quebec is a symptom of these large-scale social failures.
What are structural inequalities?
These actors: municipal, provincial, and federal, frequently engage in this behaviour that slows down solutions and leaves people stuck without housing.
What is the “blame game”?
This concept refers to the idea that unhoused people are treated as less deserving of safety or respect compared to housed residents.
What is a violation of human dignity?
This type of shelter model removes barriers like curfews, sobriety requirements, and no-pet rules to make services accessible.
What are low-barrier shelters?
Before the 1900s, unhoused people in Canada mainly relied on this institution for their basic support.
What is the church?
This group represents about 11% of Quebec’s unhoused population and faces barriers such as rental discrimination and lack of government support.
Who are immigrants?
Justice Gregory Moore ruled that the city could only intervene for safety reasons at the Notre-Dame encampment but could not do this.
What is fully evict or clear the camp?
Because shelters are crowded, unsafe, or culturally inappropriate, unhoused people rely on these areas as their only stable community spaces.
What are encampments?
This harm-reduction approach ensures shelters and encampments have access to sanitation, waste removal, and water rather than having them taken away.
What is a "do-no-harm" outreach practice?