*By Emad Mahdavi, Law Student.
Recent uproars regarding anti-homeless spikes in London (UK) and Montreal have provided a much-needed discussion on homelessness in Canada. Although the media buzz didn’t last long, it did momentarily hold our national attention.
If you don’t know what this is all about, here’s a quick refresher:
A department store recently assembled spikes outside one of its locations in London. The store claimed the spikes were to deter ‘anti-social’ behavior such as loitering. Many in the community, however, saw the spikes as targeting one very particular group of people: the homeless. After the spikes garnered attention on social media, the store finally removed them. The same happened in Montreal, where the Mayor got involved and called for the immediate removal of the spikes.
What’s the issue? So what if a private proprietor tries to protect their property from the so-called “undesirables”? What if the city itself tries to do the same? The anti-homeless spikes are nothing new, they’re merely a new addition to what is called ‘anti-homeless architecture’.
Anti-homeless architecture, also known as hostile architecture or defensive urban architecture, raises a concern much greater than it appears. It’s not solely about the individual businesses and the anti-homeless sentiments they perpetuate. At the heart of this is the issue of homeless people themselves, and particularly the degrading, misguided and ultimately damaging views, which we as the public hold towards them. Anti-homeless architecture stems from the desire to move the homeless along. Its clear why this is problematic: deterring the homeless from staying in a particular area does not address the homeless problem itself.
All across the world, hostile architecture has been used to ‘move the homeless along’, as if the homeless are someone else’s problem. City benches too narrow and small to even sit on, arm rests on benches preventing people from sleeping on them, even a measure as drastic as spreading chicken manure on a BC camping park to deter the homeless from spending the night. The spikes are nothing new, and neither is the problem it arises from.
Even more important than the misguided public view is the lack of action from our federal government regarding a national housing strategy. Canada still remains one of few industrialized developed nations without a federal anti-poverty plan or a national housing strategy.
Recently, it was brought to light that 60 homeless families in Ottawa are living in motels. The YMCA proposed to set two floors of its Argyle Street building to house 30 families, which was approved for funding by the community and protective services committee of the City of Ottawa. The federal government, however, remains silent.
Homelessness is a human rights issue. And the federal government has a responsibility to address it. The right to adequate housing is protected by article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and article 11.1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights, which Canada has ratified. And Canada has been told repeatedly by a number of bodies at the United Nations that it must take steps to address homelessness as a matter of urgency.
So how is it that Canada, being one of the strongest economies and having one of the highest GDPs, has done nothing on a federal level to address the human rights crisis of homelessness? We certainly have the means to do so, and we most definitely have the need for it. In their 2013 report on the state of poverty, The Wellesly Institute reported that there are approximately 147,000 homeless people in Canada in a given year. And there are thousands more who are not included in this number – as the study did not include individuals in transitional housing (for individuals or families), violence against women shelters and second-stage housing, immigrant/refugee shelters, halfway houses or temporary shelters (e.g. for extreme weather).
These are significant numbers, but for a national as wealthy and stable as Canada, it’s a problem that can be solved. National steps must be taken that actually address what causes homelessness. There’s no simple fix. We can’t just put up spikes on our sidewalks to disappear the homeless. We can’t address homelessness through charitable acts like providing emergency beds or food banks. And we certainly can’t have discordant provincial poverty plans (some rooted in legislation, some not) with little accountability and no means of enforcement.
It’s time we approached this through justice-based, human rights-driven, national level action; it’s time Canada hammered out a strategy: a national housing strategy.
