The invisibility of rural homelessness in a canadian context

ABSTRACT

The spread of poverty in rural areas in Western countries has given rise to new realities leading to a rethinking of the concept of poverty and its extreme manifestations. This article will illuminate an invisible form of rural poverty, that has received scant study yet remains an emerging phenomenon – rural homelessness. Based on a study conducted in a rural setting (Montérégie, Québec, Canada), the notion of visibility was employed to understand how the lack of recognition of homeless people’s experiences, both materially and symbolically, reinforces their invisibility thereby truncating political action to develop appropriate responses. Further, we illustrate that this phenomenon hampers homeless people ability to speak up about the challenges they face, further reinforcing their invisibility. We close with recommendations, strategies and actions, for preventing and reducing rural homelessness.

KEYWORDS:

• Homelessness
• rural
• visibility
• recognition
• systems

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank our community partner, la Corporation de développement communautaire de Marguerite-D'Youville and their partners for their participation in this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Sue-Ann MacDonald is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at Université de Montréal.

Dominique Gaulin is a doctoral student in the School of Social Work at Université de Montréal.

Notes

1 The Marguerite-D’Youville region is part of the administrative region of Montérégie, and comprises the South Shore subregion, which is in close proximity to the island of Montreal (large urban city). The region covers an area of 346.6 km² and represents just over 36% of the South Shore subregion (Marguerite-D’Youville RCM, 2010). Marguerite-D’Youville includes to date the municipalities of Varennes, Verchères, Sainte-Julie, Calixa-Lavallée, Contrecoeur and Saint-Amable. Its 76,720 inhabitants are concentrated mainly in three municipalities located in the southern part of the MRC: Sainte-Julie (39.55%), Varennes (27.75%) and Saint-Amable (15.45%), where the rate of urbanization is higher as they are in close proximity to Montreal. The other municipalities comprise 9% (Contrecoeur), 7.6% (Verchères) and 0.67% (Calixa-Lavallée). The Marguerite-D'Youville territory is characterized by a significant permanent agricultural zoning rate, which includes about 80% of the territory. It is important to note that 66% of the workforce labor outside of the region.

2 see Annex map of Marguerite D’Youville, Montérégie, Québec, Canada.

3 http://www.habitation.gouv.qc.ca/english/detail_du_programme_english/programme/acceslogis_quebec-1.html.