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Encampments occupied by unhoused and precariously sheltered people have proliferated in recent years in cities and towns across Canada. While right-to-housing legislation and other rights protections exist on paper, their minimal legal force has left municipalities mostly free to use policing and bylaw enforcement to remove encampments from public spaces. The result is unnoticed but devastating violence against highly vulnerable people who have no choice but to survive in public spaces.
Anti-encampment bylaws raise the question of what legal and moral rights unhoused people have to live in public space. The Bylaw State shows that bylaws are powerful municipal instruments. Far from being innocuous laws enforced by municipal workers, bylaws have quietly emerged over the last two decades as the method of governing homelessness in Canada. Case studies in Prince George and Vancouver demonstrate the extraordinary expansion of municipal bylaws and the place of courts in defending the legal rights of homeless people to take up public space. Legal scholar Alexandra Flynn and sociologist Joe Hermer explain how municipalities create an exclusionary ideal of public space through evictions and banishment, and they make a powerful case for a more inclusive approach that protects people not just spaces.Alexandra Flynn is an associate professor at UBC's Allard School of Law and the director of the Housing Research Collaborative, where her teaching and research focus on municipal and property law. The Housing Research Collaborative comprises CMHC- and SSHRC-funded projects focused on Canada's housing crisis: the Housing Assessment Resource Tools project, which helps communities to measure and address their housing need, and the Balanced Supply of Housing Node, which brings together academic and non-profit community partners to research responsive land use practices and the financialization of housing. She is the recipient of the 2024 Gold Roof Award for Housing Research Excellence.
She is working on several projects related to housing law in Canadian cities, including legal protections for those living in tent encampments and the right to housing. Prior to entering academia, she practised corporate law in New York, where she was the recipient of several Legal Aid awards. She also practised Aboriginal law in Vancouver, representing First Nations, and worked in a senior policy role at the City of Toronto focused on intergovernmental relationships. Flynn is a past TEDx speaker, a frequent media commentator, and a keynote speaker. She has a long history of volunteer work.Thanks for subscribing!
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