Replica | Homelessness: when compassion hides other affairs

The authors react to the open letter written by the business community, “Ending street homelessness”⁠1published on June 29.

Posted at 11:00 a.m.

Isabel Gervais and Karl Beaulieu
Respectively holder of a master’s degree in criminology and candidate for a master’s degree in criminology, Université de Montréal, and four other signatories*

Faced with the crises that are hitting our society and which are disproportionately affecting marginalized people, we are witnessing an increase in homelessness and speeches claiming to take charge of it. Recently, the business community has tried to establish its legitimacy to participate in this management, in particular by setting up the Business Coalition to End Street Homelessness (CAMFIR). However, as Montreal is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis, we should question the role that economic elites can play given the practical issues and their underlying interests.

First of all, the economic elites have always opposed the presence of homeless people in cities, participating in its problematization in terms of visibility. From the 1990s, we are globally witnessing a revitalization and an aestheticization of cities which must henceforth demonstrate their viability on the international level. City centers are slowly becoming objects of consumption and entertainment for the wealthy classes and tourists. In this context, marginalized people are seen as undesirable, unproductive, obstacles to the revitalization project.

The business community has strongly challenged the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) to act against their presence, in particular with repeated presence during periods of citizen consultation.

Eventually, these pressures contributed to the extent of the social profiling we are witnessing today in Montreal: more than 40% of municipal statements of offense are given to them and despite the measures put in place to remedy this, studies show an aggravation of the problem⁠2.

More recently, the business community has rather fallen back on speeches of compassion to justify their involvement in taking charge of homelessness. Their involvement is part of a broader trend of “privatization of social assistance”. This trend is not without consequence on intervention practices, which are more often at odds with the knowledge of collective action and the global approach centered on the needs of individuals. In this respect, the CAMFIR only issues street homelessness, that is, homelessness that harms business. This simplification prevents us from tackling homelessness in all its complexity, but also from being able to respond to it with a concerted, diversified approach rooted in prevention.

In this regard, CAMFIR should respect the autonomy and the principle of consultation that prevail within our community. Although the Housing First approach⁠3 shows encouraging figures, we must at all costs prevent it from becoming a diluted approach in the service of business, otherwise its effectiveness will become compromised. The philosophy of the Housing First approach and the resulting interventions are based on a vision of housing as a fundamental human right, which the CAMFIR fails to take into account. Finally, the principle of personal autonomy, fundamental in social intervention and within the Housing First approach, is absent from the project suggested by CAMFIR.

Interventions that aim to make people invisible inevitably reinforce the normative and paternalistic vision of social assistance, elements that nevertheless alienate marginalized people from services.

In addition, the business community enjoys a privileged position to direct public policy, which the community community, those with expertise in social intervention, do not have. That public funds are potentially allocated to respond, ultimately, to private interests poses, in our opinion, a problem and will continue to direct us towards more unaffordable and unequal cities, where the essence of urbanity will be economic.

In short, we are dismayed to see that the authors remain completely silent on the affordable housing crisis currently raging in Montreal and which largely contributes to the increase in homelessness that we are witnessing. Rather than interfering in debates on the “best” practices in homelessness, CAMFIR should use its power and its “political capital” to limit the problem of accessibility to rent and the gentrification of Montreal neighborhoods. Whether under punitive or compassionate discourses, as long as the imperatives behind the management of homelessness remain financial, the processes of marginalization will only be exacerbated. Let’s be clear, one cannot, at the same time, participate in the production of the problem and at the same time claim to be able to put an end to it.

3. The Housing First approach consists of housing the individual as quickly as possible, compared to the traditional approach where certain steps (therapies, programs) must be completed before they can have a lodging.

* Co-signatories: Maude Pérusse-Roy, doctoral candidate in criminology, University of Montreal; Vicky Desjardins, M. Sc. Criminology, University of Montreal; Izara Gilbert, MA social work, UQAM; Ismehen Melouka, doctoral candidate in criminology, University of Montreal


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