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Abstract
When COVID-19 struck in 2020, a large number of persons experiencing homelessness in Toronto filtered out into public spaces and makeshift shelters to try to limit further community spread. Using city council reports, transcripts from community meetings, and media publications, this article employs a novel framing device called “liminal positionality” to grasp how people who were resettled in new shelters were at once embedded among and newly rejected by the people living around these shelters. Existing residents then pressured the state to build new spatial boundaries between themselves and their new neighbours within these shared spaces.
Acknowledgements
I would like to give sincere thanks to the Studies in Political Economy reviewers, Stefan Kipfer and Dahlia Namian, along with editor David Hugill for their many helpful and incisive comments about an earlier draft of this paper. I would also like to thank my friends and former colleagues, Ryan Kelpin, Benjamin Johnson, Scott Jarosiewicz, and Courtney Lockhart, for taking the time to read an early version of this paper. They improved it greatly with their suggestions. Lastly, I want to extend my gratitude to Keith Banting, who reviewed a much earlier draft presented in June at the 2021 Canadian Political Science Association (CPSA) conference.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Buccieri, “H1N1 and Homelessness,” 145.
2 Leung et al., “Homelessness,” 403.
3 Buccieri, “H1N1 and Homelessness,” 143.
4 Esmonde, “Criminalizing Poverty,” 81; Speer, “Subalternity as Displacement,” 632.
5 Mitchell and Heynen, “Geography of Survival,” 613.
6 As cited in Walby and Lippert, “Spatial Regulation,” 1017.
7 Weissleder et al., “COVID-19 Diagnostics,” 1.
8 Fauci, Lane, and Redfield, “Navigating the Uncharted,” 1268–69.
9 City of Toronto, “COVID-19 Response for Homelessness.”
10 Howitt, “Frontiers, Borders and Edges,” 243.
11 As cited in Madge and Connor, “Mothers in Making,” 84.
12 Misawa, “Queer Race Pedagogy,” 26.
13 Neale, “Homelessness and Theory,” 50.
14 Mitchell, “Homelessness, American Style,” 937.
15 Kaufman, “Expulsion,” 329.
16 Gerrard and Farrugia, “Society of Spectacle,” 2220.
17 Mitchell, “Homelessness, American Style,” 939.
18 Darden, “Canadian Immigration,” 148.
19 Suttor, Canadian Social Housing, 136.
20 Campsie, Toronto Rooming Houses, 7; Freeman, “Making Room,” 115.
21 Shaw, “Gentrification,” 1697–8.
22 Campsie, Toronto Rooming Houses, iii.
23 Kaufman, “Expulsion,” 326.
24 Freeman, “Making Room,” 116.
25 Kipfer and Keil, “Toronto Inc?,” 239.
26 Lehrer and Wieditz, “Condominium Development,” 87; Rosen and Walks, “Toronto’s Sky,” 291.
27 Van Loon, Oosterlynck, and Aalbers, “Governing Urban Development,” 401.
28 Hulchanski, “Canadian Housing Policy,” 221; Hulchanski, “Homelessness.”
29 Campsie, “Rooming Houses,” 13.
30 Murray, “The People,” 32–33.
31 Springer, Mars, and Dennison, Toronto Homeless, 9.
32 Todd, “Megacity,” 194.
33 Mitchell, “Homelessness, American Style,” 942.
34 Leo and August, Government and Homelessness, 8.
35 City of Toronto, Building on Successes, 3.
36 Hennigan, “House Broken,” 1420.
37 Neale, “Homelessness and Theory,” 50.
38 Gerrard and Farrugia, “Society of Spectacle,” 2223.
39 Gerrard and Farrugia, “Society of Spectacle,” 2223.
40 Mitchell, “Homelessness, American Style,” 943.
41 Walby and Lippert, “Spatial Regulation,” 1016.
42 Chesnay, Bellot, and Sylvestre, “Disorderly People,” 166.
43 Sewell, “Safe Streets,” para. 8.
44 Gaetz et al., Youth Homelessness, 541.
45 August, “Cradle to Grave,” 290.
46 Kaufman, “Expulsion,” 326.
47 Evans and Albo, “Permanent Austerity,” 15.
48 Lehrer, Keil, and Kipfer, Reurbanization, 84.
49 Kalman-Lamb, “Financialization of Housing,” 311.
50 Kaufman, “Expulsion,” 326.
51 OCAP, “Open Letter.”
52 Kipfer and Mohamud, “Pandemic as Political Emergency,” 270.
53 Kipfer and Mohamud, “Pandemic as Political Emergency,” 270.
54 As cited in Kipfer and Mohamud, “Pandemic as Political Emergency,” 269.
55 City of Toronto, Physical Distancing.
56 City of Toronto, “COVID-19 Response.”
57 City of Toronto, “COVID-19 Response.”
58 City of Toronto, “COVID-19 Response.”
59 Clapp, “Pushing Homeless.”
60 DiManno, “Dismantling the Encampments.”
61 Clapp, “Pushing Homeless.”
62 City of Toronto, COVID-19 Response Update, 10.
63 City of Toronto, COVID-19 Response Update, 14.
64 Speer, “Urban Makeovers,” 582.
65 Hackworth and Moriah, “Neoliberalism, Contingency,” 515.
66 The Toronto Star, “City’s Count,” A17.
67 The Toronto Star, “City’s Count,” A17.
68 Kalman-Lamb, “Financialization of Housing,” 304.
69 Urback, “Crackdown on Tiny Shelters,” A.11.
70 Lorinc, “Tackle the Housing Problem,” H.3.
71 Gray, “Ottawa, Queen’s Park,” A.6.
72 The Toronto Star, “Parking Lot,” A.11.
73 Gray, “Ottawa, Queen’s Park,” A6; Halepis, “Residents.”
74 City of Toronto, 45 The Esplanade, 1.
75 City of Toronto, 45 The Esplanade, 3.
76 City of Toronto, 45 The Esplanade, 4.
77 City of Toronto, 45 The Esplanade, 5.
78 Jacobs, Death and Life, 30.
79 City of Toronto, Roehampton Residence, 2. Formatting in original.
80 City of Toronto, Roehampton Residence, 2. Formatting in original.
81 City of Toronto, Roehampton Residence, 5.
82 Speer, “Urban Makeovers,” 577.
83 Quiroz Becerra, “Performing Belonging,” 352.
84 SSHA, School Safety, 3.
85 SSHA, School Safety, 5.
86 SSHA, School Safety, 5.
87 SSHA, School Safety, 6.
88 City of Toronto, St. Simon's Clubbe House, 3.
89 City of Toronto, St. Simon's Clubbe House, 3.
90 City of Toronto, Information Session, 24.
91 City of Toronto, Information Session, 24.
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Jon Careless
Jon Careless is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.