Canadian Observatory on Homelessness
The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness is the largest national research institute devoted to homelessness in Canada. The COH is the curator of the Homeless Hub.
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The Canadian Observatory on Homelessness is the largest national research institute devoted to homelessness in Canada. The COH is the curator of the Homeless Hub.
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Author(s): Céline Bellot, Élaine Lesage-Mann, Marie-Eve Sylvestre, Véronique Fortin, Jacinthe Poisson
Organization: Réseau d’aide aux personnes seules et itinérantes (RAPSIM), the First Peoples Justice Centre of Montreal (FPJCM),Clinique Droits Devant
Publication Date: 2021
This study is in line with previous studies that we have conducted on social profiling and the use of municipal by-laws to judicialize homelessness in Montréal since 1994. Specifically, we identified and analyzed 50,727 statements of offence issued in Montréal between 2012 and 2019 pursuant to municipal by-law c. P-1 concerning peace and order and STM by-laws R-036 and R-105 against individuals who provided the address of an organization that off...
Author(s): Marie-Eve Sylvestre, Céline Bellot
Publication Date: 2014
In both the historic and modern eras, punitive responses to homelessness were largely based on negative stereotyping, profiling, and discrimination. Those who are homeless are wrongly portrayed as morally inferior, lazy, and dishonest individuals (the “moral depravation” discourse), blamed for their own misfortunes (the “choice” discourse), and are treated as criminals or potential serious offenders needing to be repressed and confined (the crimi...
Author(s): Sue-Ann MacDonald, Céline Bellot, Marie-Eve Sylvestre, Audrey-Anne Dumais Michaud, Anik Pelletier
Publication Date: 2014
The Mental Health Commission of Canada released its first Canadian mental health strategy in 2012. In their report, Changing Directions, Changing Lives: The Mental Health Strategy for Canada, is the alarming finding that people with mental health problems are over-represented in the justice and corrections systems, and that this trend appears to be on the rise. One of the major recommendations is to increase the availability of programs to divert...
Author(s): Catherine T. Chesnay, Céline Bellot, Marie-Eve Sylvestre
Publication Date: 2013
In the last two decades, provincial and local governments in Canada took a new series of measures to regulate urban disorder and control how public spaces were used by homeless people. Ontario became the first province to adopt new legislation with the passage of the Safe Streets Act, 1999. British Columbia soon followed the same path and enacted its own Safe Streets Act in 2004. This article focuses on the enforcement of the Safe Streets Act in...
Author(s): Céline Bellot, Marie-Eve Sylvestre, B. St. Jacques
Forthcoming: UBC Press
Author(s): Dominique Bernier, Céline Bellot, Marie-Eve Sylvestre, Catherine Chesnay
Publication Date: 2011
This report stems from research on the criminalization of homeless in Canada that documents the phenomenon in seven cities (Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec, and Halifax). Our goal was to document the practices of criminalization in these different cities and to understand the socio-legal discourse of this phenomenon. The criminalization of homelessness is a result of the adoption of municipal policies to combat ‘uncivil...