Homeless encampments are often discussed in terms of public order, which favours an enforcement-based approach. But from a human rights perspective, though, they represent at once a violation of the human right to adequate housing and the best option encampment residents have in the face of systemic failures.
What are the impacts of existing policies around encampments? How has federal funding under the Unsheltered Homelessness and Encampments Initiative changed the situation? How can we shift encampment responses towards a human rights-based approach? And how can we centre the voices of people living in encampments in the process?
To answer these questions, in September 2025, the Federal Housing Advocate, Marie-Josée Houle, visited a number of municipalities in Southern Ontario to hear directly from residents of homeless encampments, frontline workers, community organizations, and local decision-makers. From her many conversations in Cambridge, Kitchener, London, Hamilton, and Toronto, she identified main themes common to all the cities and made a series of recommendations for all levels of government.
Read the full trip report from the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate.
A Human Rights-Based Approach to Encampments
First, though, what does a human rights-based approach to encampments look like?
In February 2024, the Advocate released a report called Upholding Dignity and Human Rights: The Federal Housing Advocate’s Review of Homeless Encampments. In it, she made seven key recommendations for all governments to begin the work of respecting the human rights of people in encampments:
- Act immediately to save lives
- End forced evictions of encampments
- Work together to ensure municipalities get the support they need
- Respect the inherent rights of Indigenous Peoples
- Respect and uphold all human rights
- Offer permanent housing options as soon as possible
- Address the root causes of encampments
As the Advocate wrote in that report (p. 2):
Encampments are not a safe or sustainable solution for housing. For people living in these encampments, every day is a matter of life and death. At the same time, encampments represent an effort by people who are unhoused to claim their human right to housing and meet their most basic needs for shelter. For reasons discussed in this report, encampments are often people’s only housing option, or the only option that meets their needs for safety, security and dignity.
This report shows that respecting the human right to adequate housing means not displacing people from encampments unless and until adequate housing is available for them—not a shelter bed or hotel room, but permanent housing with supports as needed. In the meantime, essential services should be provided to those living in encampments, in accordance with their human right to life.
The Unsheltered Homelessness and Encampments Initiative (UHEI)
The UHEI distributed $250 million in federal funds to be matched by provinces, territories, and municipalities to allow them to respond to encampments—examining the impact of these funds was a key goal of the Advocate’s trip. Although it was always clear this amount would barely scratch the surface of the need, the Advocate does welcome the UHEI as a first step in a dedicated encampment response.
Although the Advocate found that specific funding for planning in municipalities led to the integration of some elements of a human rights approach, the funding’s short-term nature meant that it is unclear whether the initiatives it supported will be able to continue. Dedicated funding for encampment responses cannot remain a one-off pilot project but rather needs to be expanded into sustained funding if we are to meaningfully respond to this issue on a national scale.
Systemic failures are driving the increase in homelessness, and tackling systemic issues takes time, which means sustained funding. In the meantime, the urgency is only deepening.
Broad Themes That Emerged From the Visit
We have already touched on a few key themes: the increase in homelessness is being driven by breakdowns in multiple systems; emergency shelters are not adequate housing; encampments allow for survival when better options are not available; and public safety rhetoric undermines dignity and human rights. These are in fact the first four themes identified in the Advocate’s report on her trip to Southern Ontario.
The next group of themes deal with factors that increase the vulnerability of people experiencing homelessness: extreme weather, evictions and criminalization, and the gendered violence faced by women and gender-diverse people. The Advocate also identified a need for more Indigenous-specific services to meet the needs of that community.
Finally, the report discusses the ways in which community organizations, both funded and volunteer-run, are overstretched and unable to fill gaps while facing increased hostility. These gaps emerge in a context of inadequate federal funding that does not allow for long-term planning in municipalities. But funding alone is not enough, as housing without necessary services, like health care, is not stable—any response to encampments needs to see housing and health care as interconnected, with positive outcomes in one tied to positive outcomes in the other.
Recommendations
Based on the needs identified in communities across Southern Ontario, the Advocate made nine recommendations, and each contains subpoints with specific responsibilities and action items. The first is a broad call for sustained federal investment in human rights-based responses to encampments, which would lead to such approaches being adopted at the provincial and municipal levels as well. A human rights-based approach has a number of elements, but at its core is meaningful involvement of encampment residents in the decisions that affect them.
From this first recommendation flow two others: end forced encampment evictions and the criminalization of homelessness, and stop forcing people to choose between eviction and inadequate housing. Evictions and criminalization cause serious harm that is fully avoidable, and using them to coerce people into taking a shelter bed that does not meet their needs is not consistent with a human rights-based approach.
Adequate housing includes necessary services, and the Advocate’s next two recommendations speak to this. Housing and health care should be integrated to prevent discharges into homelessness, and on-site health services should be available in supportive housing. As well, services should be adapted to the needs of groups at specific risk. Because of the disproportionate impact of homelessness on Indigenous communities, programs and services that are both culturally informed and trauma-informed are required to support them. Similarly, women and gender-diverse people face added risks when experiencing homelessness, both in shelters and on the street, meaning they need governments to take a gendered lens to homelessness responses and more safe, women-focused shelters and housing.
The Advocate calls for specific strategies to respond to extreme weather year-round (which will only get more important as climate change progresses). As well, she heard that community organizations, both funded and volunteer-run, that provide support to encampment residents are facing a growing climate of hostility. She calls for these groups to be protected and empowered in their work and for an end to retaliation against them.
Finally, the Advocate focused specifically on the housing needs of refugee claimants, who are increasingly being forced into homelessness by systems that fail to meet their needs. The Advocate calls for a commitment to adequate housing for refugee claimants from all levels of government (consistent with Canada’s legal obligations) and for the federal government to provide adequate funding to municipalities and collaborate with them in the planning process.
A Shared Responsibility
To respond to the crisis of homelessness in Canada, all levels of government need to agree on a rights-based framework and coordinate their actions and resources. Although each community is faced with unique challenges, that does not mean municipalities should be left as the primary governments responsible for encampments. This report is a clear call for federal leadership in creating a national encampment response, one that is adaptable and reactive to the needs of local communities.
Read the full report from the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate—What We Heard about Federal, Provincial, and Municipal Responses to Homeless Encampments: The Federal Housing Advocate’s Visit to Southern Ontario.
Learn more about the Advocate’s work around encampments.