NON-MEMBER Pricing - September 25th, 2024: Bylaw enforcement and the invisibilization of homelessness with Natasha Martino

Homelessness is a social problem, impacting at least 25,000 people per day in Canada alone. Over the past two decades, homelessness has become more visible, leading to increased demands for law enforcement to minimize the visibility of people experiencing homelessness, and manage local encampments. While scholarship exists on police responses to homelessness, the role that municipal bylaw officers play in regulating homelessness is largely unknown.

In this presentation, I explore municipal bylaw officers’ perceptions of their roles and responsibilities related to homelessness in Ontario, Canada. Our analysis demonstrates how bylaw officers’ policies, which focus on the regulation of space, are disconnected from their frontline activities, which require the regulation of people. Situated in a ‘regulatory grey zone,’ bylaw officers rely on discretionary solutions informed by their subjective experiences to govern people experiencing homelessness. To manage complaints about homelessness, bylaw officers use different strategies to invisibilize homelessness, including moving people along and redirecting complaints to other agencies, such as social services and police. We argue that, through their mechanisms of enforcing public space orders, bylaw officers engage in reluctant criminalization using invisibilization tactics. I conclude by discussing areas for future research.  

Natasha Martino is a PhD student in the department of Sociology at McMaster University. Her research interests focus broadly around homelessness, policing, marginalization, social exclusion/inclusion, and reintegration. Natasha obtained her Master of Arts in Criminology from Wilfrid Laurier University. Her exploratory research examined the role of bylaw enforcement and municipal ordinances in the social control and management of homelessness and homeless encampments across Ontario. Natasha is currently a research assistant for the University of Alberta Prison Project, and has recently been conducting research with Dr. Tarah Hodgkinson and CAPG on police governance and oversight.