Flynn, Alexandra, author

The bylaw state : encampment evictions & the struggle for public space / Alexandra Flynn and Joe Hermer ; foreword by Terry Teegee.

Halifax, Nova Scotia : Fernwood Publishing, [2026]

xviii, 132 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

"Encampments occupied by unhoused and precariously sheltered people have proliferated in recent years in cities and towns across Canada. While right-to-housing legislation and other rights protections exist on paper, their minimal legal force has left municipalities mostly free to use policing and bylaw enforcement to remove encampments from public spaces. The result is unnoticed but devastating violence against highly vulnerable people who have no choice but to survive in public spaces. Anti-encampment bylaws raise the question of what legal and moral rights unhoused people have to live in public space. The Bylaw State shows that bylaws are powerful municipal instruments. Far from being innocuous laws enforced by municipal workers, bylaws have quietly emerged over the last two decades as the method of governing homelessness in Canada. Case studies in Prince George and Vancouver demonstrate the extraordinary expansion of municipal bylaws and the place of courts in defending the legal rights of homeless people to take up public space. Legal scholar Alexandra Flynn and sociologist Joe Hermer explain how municipalities create an exclusionary ideal of public space through evictions and banishment, and they make a powerful case for a more inclusive approach that protects people not just spaces."-- From publisher's website.

9781773638027 paperback
1773638025 paperback

Homeless persons Legal status, laws, etc. Canada.
Homelessness Law and legislation Canada.
Homeless camps Canada.
By-laws Canada.
Public spaces Canada.
Espaces publics Canada.
POLITICAL SCIENCE / Human Rights.

Hermer, Joe, 1967- author
Teegee, Terry, writer of foreword.

Encampment evictions and the struggle for public space

Location: Library main 325678
Call No.: 325678
Copy: 1
Status: Available