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Flynn and Van Wagner: Introduction to the Special Issue on Housing Precarity and Human
Introduction to the Special Issue on Housing Precarity and Human
Rights
ALEXANDRA FLYNN & ESTAIR VAN WAGNER
Homeless encampments threaten many human rights ... . Encampments are thus
instances of both human rights violations of those who are forced to rely on them for
their homes, as well as human rights claims, advanced in response to violations of the
right to housing. Ultimately, encampments are a reflection of Canadian governments'
failure to successfully implement the right to adequate housing. Leilani Farha and
Kaitlin Schwan in A National Protocol for Homeless Encampments in Canada'
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.2 People weave in and out of living situations, whether in shelters,
apartments, rooming houses, and encampments.3 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.
Special issue authors live, or have lived, on the territories of various Indigenous nations
across what some call Turtle Island, in what is now known as Canada. We believe it is crucial to
understand colonialism as integral to the production and maintenance of housing precarity. In
particular, how colonial legal and political structures have been, and continue to be, instruments
of dispossession, violence, and disconnection from territory, place, culture, community, and
family. The articles in this issue largely focus on colonial legal and political structures rather than
the enduring Indigenous systems of law and governance across this territory. Our hope is that this
work supports ongoing and future dialogues about decolonizing housing law and policy and
upholding Indigenous jurisdiction.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic downturn, many Canadian
cities were experiencing housing and homelessness crises. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic
powerfully illustrated the life and death consequences of having a safe and stable place to call
home. Across Canada, unhoused people were unable to comply with stay-at-home orders when
the pandemic began. Shelters in many communities were already at or over capacity and
overcrowding led to COVID-19 outbreaks. Despite the increasing prevalence of homeless
encampments across Canada and the impacts of the pandemic, few governments have adopted and
implemented human rights-based responses. While at the start of the pandemic some Canadian
cities imposed moratoriums on encampment evictions, they later resumed this long-standing
practice, contrary to public health advice. Cities went to court asserting their rights to evict
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.
Published by Osgoode Digital Commons, 2023](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jlsp36&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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