In a major homelessness ruling, the Supreme Court holds that cities and municipalities can punish people for sleeping outside, even when they have nowhere else to go.
Activists protest outside the Supreme Court before arguments in Grants Pass v. Johnson on April 22, 2024, in Washington, D.C.
Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Anti-camping laws are the centerpiece of the ‘hostile design’ strategies cities use to push the unhoused out of public spaces.
Beyond the social benefits of living with a pet, the connections that companion animals provide can assist in recovery from addiction and lead to better emotional and mental health for unhoused people.
(Shutterstock)
Many unhoused people have pets, however, accessing health care for themselves and their pets can be a challenge. ‘One Health’ clinics can provide vital health care to unhoused people and their pets.
Canada needs a unifying national strategy that addresses long-term treatment of traumatic brain injury.
(Shutterstock)
Traumatic brain injury can have profound long-term impact, but care is often focused on immediate symptoms. Bill C-277 aims to develop a national strategy for treatment, rehabilitation and recovery.
Individual rules against activities such as camping or just resting on a ledge may not seem like a big deal. But taken together, they make life more difficult for people without shelter.
Robert Rosenberger
Anti-camping laws are the centerpiece of the ‘hostile design’ strategies cities use to push the unhoused out of public spaces.
Police drag away a tent from a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California, Irvine on May 15, 2024.
Leonard Ortiz/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images
Framing dissent and poverty as a menace to public order can threaten fundamental rights, particularly when it’s used to justify the deployment of predictive technology.
New social housing in Gympie.
Queensland Department of the Premier and Cabinet/AAP
Governments’ policy inaction and complacency bear much of the blame for the lack of affordable housing. But a new report detects signs of hope in Queensland.
A builder works on the construction of a new home.
AP Photo/Mel Evans
Legal precedents hold that criminalizing someone for their status, such as being homeless, is cruel and unusual punishment. But what if that status leads to actions like sleeping in public spaces?
Sometimes emergency housing programs encourage domestic violence survivors to use unsafe alternatives to public programs − even staying with their abusive partner.
Claudia Wolff/Unsplash
Programs and policies to help domestic abuse survivors find safe housing work only if they’re implemented and supported with resources.
Workers demolish the temporary installation for refugee claimants at Roxham Road in September 2023 in St. Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que. Since then, refugee claims have increased.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
The number of people sleeping rough in rural areas has increased by 24% in the last year.
Unhoused people and supporters protest against police as they prepare to clear homeless encampments in Edmonton on Jan. 9, 2024.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
Encampment sweeps in Edmonton are a brutal attack on both human and treaty rights, as well as a continuation of the violent removal of Indigenous Peoples from their land.
Tents belonging to unhoused people on a sidewalk in downtown Edmonton on June 15, 2022.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jason Franson
If passed, B.C.’s Bill 45 will trample over the constitutional rights of unhoused people by ignoring shelter barriers, Indigenous rights and the need for daytime shelter
Portland, Maine, officials ordered that a park be cleared on Sept. 28, 2022, of people who were homeless and that any trash be removed before a visit by a candidate for governor.
AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty
It takes time to make more affordable long-term housing options available. So what can be done in the meantime? We can start by prioritising well-designed, supportive transitional housing.