Once a month, The duty challenges philosophy enthusiasts to decipher a current issue based on the theses of a notable thinker.
In the work Private property, social property, self-ownership, the French sociologist Robert Castel (1933-2013) offers us a key to understanding allowing us to put certain aspects of the homelessness crisis into perspective. Castel recalls that, in the history of Western societies, the democratic choice in the establishment of our social ties in the 17th centurye and XVIIIe centuries required ensuring property for the individual so that he could realize himself and appropriate a social existence (self-ownership).
The non-owner was not considered a positive individual. This private property was to serve as a support for individuality as a good citizen who could then express himself in his name. He could foresee his future somewhat in opposition to submission to a feudal or religious political authority whose dependence prevented any projection of life.
Since this political principle could not be truly applied due to the greed of wealthier owners, generating social inequalities specific to the growing capitalist regime, the meaning of property was broadened to include social property. This was instituted as a compensatory form of more equitable redistribution of wealth to correspond to the democratic ideal.
This is how social policies such as unemployment insurance, health insurance, as well as social assistance and social housing (HLM) came into being. But not without difficult historical struggles. Thanks to this social ownership, it was no longer essential to be the owner of land to ensure one’s physical and psychological integrity and thus acquire a certain social autonomy.
Hyperindividualism
Today, the increasing privatization of our social existence and the individualization of inequalities weigh heavily on people by widening the difference between those who succeed and those who fail. Castel adds that this hyperindividualism of our neoliberal societies would encourage a growing intolerance towards those who do not correspond to the model of the responsible, efficient, competitive and resilient individual, like the individual entrepreneur.
According to the sociologist, many forget that they are part of a community by seeing themselves as self-sufficient, centered on themselves and freed from society. We can then better measure the impact that the marginal behaviors of people experiencing homelessness can have on the sensitivity of many residents and merchants around them. Especially in the absence of health infrastructure adapted to street life.
This type of relationship would also result in the appropriation of public space by new residents and merchants who settle in the city center and who have been promised a revitalized, safe, clean and friendly environment.
In his work Cohabiting public space, published in 2016, Antonin Margier notes a trend toward residential normalization of public space in Montreal and Paris, which makes it an extension of one’s home: “This is my park, my street; these are my local shops, my grocery store, etc. » From then on, the appropriation of public spaces by people experiencing homelessness suddenly comes into conflict with residents and traders who little by little consider themselves the symbolic or quasi-private owners of these public places.
This dominant representation of social ties contributes to degrading social ownership by redefining and controlling the limits of access, dispossessing people experiencing homelessness in particular. Let us think of sex workers, street youth and other homeless people who have been chased out of downtown Montreal since the end of the 1990s. More recently, operations to dismantle urban encampments also go in this direction. People experiencing homelessness would no longer be considered citizens capable of conforming to current social norms in public spaces.
However, research has shown that, because they do not have a place to call home, people experiencing homelessness try to find a social place by appropriating public spaces which, by definition, do not belong to a private owner and which are in some way social properties.
When there are no longer any accommodation options, these public places become by default the last precarious places of self-ownership.
Social poverty
The homelessness crisis that we are witnessing in several Quebec cities is not caused only by the opioid crisis, inflation, staff shortages, high interest rates or the effects of the pandemic. It is mainly the result of federal government disinvestment since the 1990s in the construction of social housing and repeated cuts by the Quebec government, underdeveloping social services and education.
This political choice, often confused with laxity, promotes a feeling of helplessness among the stakeholders concerned, who must face increasingly complex situations in homelessness, including those associated with cohabitation in public spaces. Let us add the role played by the promoters of urban revitalization, who have imposed for 30 years, with the assistance of municipalities, their development model based on safe entertainment and the development of a friendly environment promoting the “customer experience” .
The relationships we have with people experiencing homelessness are not just interpersonal relationships which can sometimes be very difficult. These relationships are also invested by the weight of the socio-economic and cultural determinants of current urban life, including that of the mass commercial aestheticization of public spaces to sell the Quartier des spectacles (Montreal) or the Nouvo Saint-Roch (Québec ) as consumerist utopias for target audiences.
We accept this choice of development as progress or inevitability, a bit like gravity. Making public spaces a commercial showcase to attract new investors or promoting the attraction of an essential urban destination is in fact a political and economic choice in line with the demands of the global market. This is an ideological orientation which, however, moves away from a democratic conception of public space.
This neoliberal exploitation of public space not only conditions our representations of homeless people and our way of defining the problems associated with their presence, but also the intensification of tensions and social inequalities.
For example, this way of considering the presence of people experiencing homelessness in public space tends to be reduced to an evaluation of the negative externalities of current economic development. Thus, the visibility of itinerant people disseminating images of great precariousness and social insecurity would represent a symbolic threat to the branding promoted urban.
For around thirty years, our research on homelessness in Montreal and Quebec has attested to the use of cohabitation management strategies based on controlling the mobility of people in situations of marginality. Let’s think about the successive cleaning operations of these people taking the form of strategies of expulsion, pushback, concentration or dilution of their presence in public spaces.
The visibility of an image that is inappropriate and inappropriate to the privileged urban model of development has even pushed certain socio-economic actors to defend the formal objective of eliminating visible homelessness without considering the complexity of the causes of its production. How can we understand the meaning of this political hype promising the disappearance of homelessness other than by seeing it as “compassionate” rhetoric justifying the elimination of a socio-economic obstacle?
Collective speech
This dominant type of approach creates tensions with another, more considerate vision, aiming to make people’s realities more visible by having their right of access to public spaces recognized. Let’s think about the Night of the Homeless, the Droits Devant clinic or, more recently, the collective We leave no one behind.
The debates on whether or not it is necessary to dismantle encampments for people experiencing homelessness clearly illustrate this divide between management strategies prioritizing economic requirements and those prioritizing human rights.
In a society that aims to be democratic, public manifestations of social misery should not represent a threat, but rather a call for solidarity, already heard by several actors in the community sector in particular. However, people experiencing homelessness are continually absent from debates that concern controversies about their presence. It could be that a dialogue with them has the chance of modifying the horizon of representations and solutions.
To do this, it is necessary to support experiences of collective organization of people experiencing homelessness so that they can develop concerted points of view on the problems that they themselves define regarding sharing situations. public space and the courses of action that they would prioritize. In short, we must capitalize on their potential for self-organization, already observable in the camps, and strengthen their social ownership.
To suggest a text or to make comments and suggestions, write to Dave Noël at [email protected].