Criminalization of Homelessness

❖ 1. What Criminalization Looks Like

Across Canada and globally, criminalization includes:

• Bylaws that ban “nuisance behaviours” associated with survival
• Police targeting of unhoused individuals for routine ID checks or displacement
• Encampment removals that destroy belongings, medications, and tents
• Arrests for failing to pay fines tied to homelessness
• Denial of bail, leading to jail time for minor infractions
• Courts used to cycle individuals through a costly, dehumanizing loop

Being poor is not a crime.
But living without shelter is increasingly treated as one.

❖ 2. Who This Harms Most

Criminalization disproportionately impacts:

• Indigenous Peoples, especially in urban settings
• Black and racialized communities already over-policed
• 2SLGBTQ+ youth, who often flee unsafe homes
• People with mental illness, disabilities, and trauma histories
• Women and gender-diverse individuals who face threats in shelters or avoid them altogether
• Elders and newcomers navigating systems not built for them

Many aren’t homeless by choice.
They’re homeless because systems failed—then blamed them for falling.

❖ 3. Why This Approach Fails

Criminalizing homelessness:

• Does not reduce homelessness
• Drains public funds through policing, courts, and incarceration
• Breaks trust with services, making people less likely to seek help
• Destroys belongings critical to survival (ID, medications, clothing)
• Pushes people into isolation, worsening health and vulnerability
• Creates a record that blocks future employment or housing opportunities

It’s costly, cruel, and completely ineffective.

❖ 4. What a Justice-Centered Approach Looks Like

Instead of policing poverty, cities can:

• Declare homelessness a public health and housing issue, not a criminal one
• Invest in housing-first solutions with wraparound supports
• Fund outreach teams, peer support workers, and harm reduction models
• End encampment evictions unless dignified alternatives are offered
• Train police to refer, not remove—or remove them from the process entirely
• Provide safe public spaces, storage, restrooms, and transit access without strings

The answer isn’t fewer tents.
It’s more homes—and more humanity in how we treat those still waiting for one.

❖ Final Thought

You can’t punish away poverty.
You can’t arrest your way to housing justice.
And you cannot claim to care about public safety while criminalizing the most unsafe conditions of all.

A just society meets need with care, not cuffs.

Let’s talk.
Let’s divest from harm.
Let’s decriminalize survival.