What We Know

Four major findings regarding precariously housed and unhoused people in regard to their personal belongings emerge from analyzing the case law, legislation, and research:

1. There is a lack of safe and secure places to keep the belongings of precariously housed people.
2. Routine and frequent seizure and destruction of belongings by officials and private actors under various statutes, bylaws and rules is widespread.
3. The seizure and destruction of precariously housed people’s belongings exacerbates and perpetuates vulnerability.
4. There are a lack of remedies available to precariously housed people.

1. There is a lack of safe and secure places to keep belongings of precariously housed people

Lack of secure places on streets and in parks

Precariously housed people lack access to safe, adequate, and secure places to keep their personal belongings due to the lack of secure tenure to land. This lack of security of belongings means that precariously housed people have limited control over their belongings, in many cases forcing them to move their personal property on a daily basis to avoid impound or theft. Others are legally empowered to make decisions regarding precariously housed people’s belongings. The lack of security of belongings experienced by unhoused people depends on and is informed by the category of space they occupy, and the formal and informal rules that govern that public or private space. Public land is regulated through municipal legislation specific to parks, streets, and in some jurisdictions, vacant city-owned property, and through provincial legislation that governs unclaimed property. Private land and personal property on private land is regulated through provincial trespass legislation and municipal property standards bylaws that outline the public responsibilities of private property owners. As a result, many unhoused people are obliged to carry all their personal belongings with them.

Lack of security of belongings in shelters

Existing in between the public and private realms, shelters and transitional housing offer the impression of stability and security for person and possession. However, the fact that shelters offer minimal secure storage¹ (and at times no daytime storage capacity whatsoever²) and that they are exempt from residential tenancy legislation, means shelter-users’ rights differ little from those they have on the streets; they are at risk of theft and loss of belongings under shelter regulations and rules. Shelter standards frameworks which include loose requirements for storage, policies regarding storage of belongings upon client discharge, and other procedures, lack the teeth to ensure shelter residents are guaranteed adequate storage and rights mechanisms. As such, shelter-users often see encampments as the only place they can keep their belongings safe from theft and thus often choose them over shelters, despite risks of municipal enforcement through bylaws or injunctions.³

Precarious housing leads to vulnerability of belongings

Laws and regulations that govern people in precarious housing situations, whether their accommodations are covered by landlord-tenant legislation or not, purport to offer security of belongings. In reality they include broad regulatory gaps that leave people vulnerable to the loss of personal property. While tenants of rooming houses and SROs, some of the only affordable options in cities like Toronto and Vancouver, are protected by landlord-tenant legislation, in practice, misaligned provincial and municipal statutes often leave tenants unsure of their rights, and are vulnerable to power imbalances between landlord and tenant. Rooming house tenants in Toronto, for example, may live in a district where rooming houses are illegal according to municipal bylaw yet covered under provincial landlord-tenant legislation, leaving them unsure which regulatory body could best meet their needs without risking their tenancy, and in turn, the security of their belongings. Municipal complaints mechanisms then become predominantly used by neighbouring home-owners reporting rooming houses that are unregistered or in neighbourhoods that ban them altogether, rather than by tenants of rooming houses for substandard maintenance.⁴ The lack of clarity and understanding of tenancy rights, created in part by misaligned municipal and provincial legislation, means that the few benefits afforded to precariously housed tenants through residential tenancy legislation are often neglected, thus creating further precarity for their tenancies and personal property.

2. Routine and frequent seizure and destruction of belongings by officials and private actors under various statutes, bylaws and rules is widespread

As precariously housed and unhoused people generally lack title to land upon which they can store and control their possessions, they are more likely to experience heightened exposure to municipal and provincial legislation. In practice, this municipal and provincial legislation permits government workers, landlords, and governmental or non-profit housing and shelter employees to seize or destroy belongings if they are determined to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This creates a widespread matrix of overlapping control. For those sheltering outside, this is done through street sweeps, daily displacements, and in the case of larger encampments, through court ordered injunctions (in BC) or wider scale enforcement (in Ontario). For those in shelters, this is done through program or shelter agreements that limit shelter providers’ responsibility and permit them to dispose of personal property in certain circumstances,⁵ and shelter programs that lack storage leading to loss and theft of belongings. For those precariously housed in rental agreements, although some protection exists through landlord-tenant legislation, complicated municipal and provincial regulatory worlds mean that people in SROs, rooming houses, transitional or supportive housing, or other housing arrangements not covered by residential tenancies acts are left vulnerable to loss of tenancy and loss of belongings.

The seizure and destruction of poor peoples’ belongings is intensified by several factors: the visibility of precariously housed and unhoused individuals forced to tote around their belongings; the broad discretion exercised by those enforcing the legislation and the related stigma towards both people experiencing poverty and their belongings; the lack of clarity that accompanies the various regulatory schemes and enforcement tactics; and an understanding of colonization and the impacts of enforcement and displacement of Indigenous populations.

Regulatory controls of precariously housed people’s belongings exist in all the spaces – public and private – that people access and use. As a result, people and their belongings are constantly at risk of seizure and control by others. The daily need to negotiate this matrix forces precariously housed people to make impossible and unsustainable choices regarding their possessions. This flowchart [add link] sets out these very difficult challenges.

Visibility

Precariously housed and unhoused people’s belongings are particularly vulnerable because of their material visibility. Regulation such as municipal bylaws tend to focus less on the person, due to understandable equality concerns, than on material objects. Thus, while it may not be an offence for a visibly poor person to occupy a public park, given the repeal of vagrancy laws, the placement of their belongings may become legally targeted. The same municipal and provincial laws that make it extremely difficult to exist with personal property in parks, on streets, and on certain forms of private property, permit municipal workers to immediately seize and destroy the belongings of unhoused people forced to shelter outdoors.⁶ This is illustrated in Grand Forks (City) v Jennings,⁷ where the visibility of a family living out of a van led to housed residents pressuring government officials to enforcement and eventually seeking an injunction. Visibility attracts enforcement of streets and parks bylaws that target unhoused people, such as daytime sheltering bans. Enforcement perpetuates vulnerability through loss of belongings, fines, and displacement which contributes to further visibility. Municipal and provincial legislation regulating a person’s ability to exist in public and private space, therefore, constitutes a cycle of enforcement creating vulnerability which leads to more enforcement.

The connection between visibility and enforcement is still an issue for people using shelter programs. As shelters often lack secure places for people to keep their belongings, shelter-users are still expected to carry the majority or entirety of their belongings with them during the day, making them more visible and therefore more vulnerable to enforcement. This means that shelter-users are subject to both the rules and restrictions on their belongings in both shelters and on the streets, and in some sense could put their belongings doubly at risk of being destroyed.⁸ When people are housed or able to access storage, visibility become less of an issue.

Discretion and Stigma

Related to visibility, enforcement mechanisms include subjective processes that can often be informed by public stigma towards people experiencing poverty and their personal property. Enforcement agencies are afforded discretion when determining which personal possessions are retained, spared, or stored, and which are impounded or destroyed. Words and phrases such as ‘obstruction’, ‘garbage’, ‘offensive’, ‘unmarketable’, ‘unsafe’, and even ‘value under $500’ are codified in provincial tenancy legislation and municipal bylaws, permitting government enforcement and private landlords to make value judgements regarding people’s personal belongings without transparency or accountability regarding how those are determined. While legislation that lacks space for any discretion can create problems of its own, legislation that permits broad discretion by enforcement entities, paired with the stigma that exists towards people experiencing poverty and their belongings, can leads to people’s possessions being destroyed based on outsider perspectives that may not take into account sentimental, emotional, survival, or other individual reasons for holding onto certain possessions.⁹

Lack of Transparency

The lack of transparency and consultation during periods of enforcement, transition, or decampment, have impacts on people and their personal belongings. These periods are often characterized by lack of clear communication regarding what rights a person has to their belongings, how much they are able to take with them, and what their rights are in the new location.¹⁰ This was seen in the transition of encampment residents to the Knights Inn in Prince George in 2021 where the belongings of encampment residents were destroyed without warning and with little time to gather belongings after people had been relocated to an indoor space.¹¹

Tenants in precarious housing settings such as rooming houses, SROs, supportive housing, and transitional housing, also experience lack of clarity regarding whether their tenancy is covered by residential tenancy legislation, meaning they are often unaware of whether their belongings are protected by the few provisions meant to protect tenants and their belongings. Further, in certain jurisdictions, unclear overlapping and misaligning provincial and municipal laws regarding tenancies means that people are often unaware of their rights as tenants, and of the most appropriate place to address complaints and concerns.

Some of this uncertainty can be attributed to communication breakdowns between levels of government (e.g. provincial landlord-tenant legislation and municipal housing bylaw enforcement) as well as within governments (municipal bylaw enforcement and police services). For example, public and social services systems are not designed to work in conjunction with landlords, landlord-tenant legislation, or its entities, and because of this, tenant stability and personal property rights are thereby impacted. Additionally, lack of clarity in enforcement can at times be attributed to the level of discretion granted to enforcement entities, meaning people are left guessing how laws will be enforced.

Colonization, displacement, and property

Statutes, bylaws, and rules that permit officials to seize and destroy the belongings of precariously housed and unhoused people must be considered in the context of historic and ongoing colonialism and displacement of Indigenous people across the continent. Canada’s history of settler colonialism has included laws and policies with the ideology of removal, displacement, dispossession, and genocide of thousands of unique Indigenous communities.¹² Canada’s major urban centres are “crucial sites of displacement” of what were often historic Indigenous communities due to “rich access to resources” and transportation.¹³ This seizure of land and resources, and simultaneous displacement of Indigenous communities, is a purposeful tool of advancing colonial economic objectives.¹⁴

Contemporary laws that displace precariously housed and unhoused individuals have their roots in these colonial policies of displacement, seizure, and extraction. While contemporary municipal bylaws that restrict sheltering in parks or on sidewalks are not exclusively directed at Indigenous populations, the reality is that a disproportionate number of Indigenous people experience homelessness and poverty¹⁵ and thus these laws continue to disproportionately impact Indigenous people. Additionally, statutes that perpetuate displacement, seizure, and destruction of belongings are rooted in colonial concepts of land and property that ignore Indigenous legal traditions and concepts of land, treaties, and the fact that much of what is known as Canada is unceded territory.

Understanding the current regulatory matrices that exist in cities regarding the personal belongings of people experiencing poverty and homelessness can only be done when one understands context of historic and ongoing genocide of Indigenous peoples.

3. The seizure and destruction of precariously housed people’s belongings exacerbates and perpetuates vulnerability

The impacts of laws, bylaws, and rules that target precariously housed and unhoused people through impound, disposal, and theft of their belongings causes harm and trauma, and intensifies existing forms of vulnerability. The effects of these laws are counterproductive to their presumed intended goals of deterring certain behaviours in public space and addressing visible homelessness. Instead, these laws criminalize the condition of poverty and exacerbate the condition of homelessness. Not only are these various statutes, bylaws, and rules financially unsustainable for people who are forced to continue to purchase or source new belongings, and for the organizations and branches of government that offer material and financial support,¹⁶ they actively cause harm to those people frequently subjected to their enforcement. Interconnected physical and mental harms caused by the loss of belongings intensify and lengthen people’s experiences of homelessness and marginalization by impeding their ability to secure stable arrangements such as shelter, employment, food, and health services. The seizure and destruction of poor people’s belongings is counterproductive, unsustainable, and actively perpetuates vulnerability of people already experiencing poverty and housing precarity.

Physical harms and vulnerability

When precariously housed and unhoused people have their personal belongings seized and destroyed by government actors it increases their experiences of marginalization through physical harm. The loss of critical survival belongings such as tents, sleeping bags, medication, and food can have significant impacts on one’s physical wellbeing by exacerbating health issues.¹⁷ The loss of mobility aids,¹⁸ harm reduction supplies and naloxone,¹⁹ and both legalized and criminalized substances can have serious physical impacts such as increased risk of injury, disease transmission, withdrawal, and overdose. Similarly, some people may forego important medical treatment out of fears their belongings would be seized when they were seeking medical care.²⁰ Beyond the loss of survival supplies, the impound and destruction of people’s personal belongings also impact people’s ability to earn an income and sustain themselves. Bylaws in certain municipalities target depositing “any quantity of waste on any land”,²¹ and other bylaws that target the use of shopping carts²² impacts the financial autonomy of people who engage in recovery of recyclable and other sellable items to generate an income. Loss of phones, government-issued ID, legal and medical documents and laboratory requisitions, and art supplies are other examples of items taken by government actors that impact people’s ability to survive, access services, deal with legal matters, and generate income while precariously house.²³ All these physical harms caused by the seizure and destruction of personal possessions increases vulnerability by requiring people to perpetually spend their time and energy on ensuring their physical survival.

Mental/Emotional/Psychological harms and vulnerability

There is an intimate connection between physical and mental harms caused by the seizure and disposal of the personal belongings of precariously housed and unhoused people. The loss of survival supplies and shelter, such as through the seizure of a tent or impound of a vehicle used for sleeping, directly impacts a person’s physical wellbeing, and relatedly, impacts their feelings of safety of having a relatively stable place to sleep, live, and shelter from the elements.²⁴ The impound and destruction of any belongings with emotional value, whether or not they are integral to one’s immediate physical survival, can have lasting mental, emotional, and psychological impacts through feelings of hopelessness, constant stress, alienation, and community breakdown.²⁵ This can be seen in the loss and seizure of cellphones, family photos and heirlooms, cultural objects, personal journals and art, a deceased relative’s ashes, and pets.²⁶ Regardless of what the object is, the loss of one’s belongings can threaten that person’s sense of identity, security, and autonomy, making precarious people even more vulnerable.²⁷ In addition to actual seizure, the ever-present threat of seizure or destruction of belongings can also create profound harm.

Just as the destruction of personal belongings has impacts on a person’s mental wellbeing due to the actual loss of the physical object, the stigmatization informing that process also impacts one’s emotional, mental, and psychological well-being. Statutes and bylaws that rely on the discretion of the enforcement entity in determining whether belongings are “unsightly” (Victoria Property Maintenance bylaw), “deleterious to the neighbourhood” (Ottawa Property Standards), “unmarketable” (BC Police (Disposal of Property) Regulation) or filth, junk, or refuse (Victoria Property Maintenance bylaw) permit enforcement officials to make value judgments on a person’s belongings, and by association on the person themselves. This contributes to further marginalization through both destroying belongings but also through stigmatization of their existence in public space.

Institutional Recognition

Some institutions are beginning to take into the consideration the increased precarity and vulnerability that comes with the seizure and destruction of people’s belongings. In recent instances of municipalities seeking injunctions in Wallstam, Courtoreille, Bamberger, and Johnny, courts have begun to recognize the physical and mental toll related to loss of belongings and displacement of encampments, even acknowledging it as “serious harm on vulnerable people”.²⁸ Similarly, shelter standards frameworks in some jurisdictions restrict shelter providers from confiscating certain belongings such as harm reduction supplies, life-saving medicine and naloxone, and hormones for transgender clients,²⁹ and Toronto’s Interdepartmental Service Protocol for Homeless People Camping in Public Spaces requires staff to sort through materials before clearing a site to look for personal items such as photos, documents, and ID.³⁰ While these steps acknowledge the importance of certain belongings, they continue to allow enforcement entities to make value judgments regarding what belongings of precariously housed and unhoused people are important, and neglect to consider that the loss of any belongings to government entities amounts to physical and mental harm that perpetuates vulnerability of people already vulnerable as precariously housed or unhoused people. Moreover, the daily practice of regulation may continue to differ from such new mandates.

4. Precariously housed people have few (if any) remedies

Precariously housed and unhoused people have few fair and accessible remedies available to them when their belongings are seized or destroyed by government actors or private entities. Just as there is lack of clarity in how legislation regarding precariously housed people’s belongings is enforced, there is similar lack of clarity in what remedies exist when people want to recover their belongings or make a complaint about the process.³¹ When belongings are seized and held by public or private entities, there are rarely clear, formal processes for recovering their belongings, and those options that do exist are often inaccessible. When belongings are destroyed according to (or outside of) the pertinent legislation, there are few avenues available for compensation. Processes that would allow for broader systemic changes, such as police complaints, ombudsperson complaints, or Charter challenges also present significant barriers and generally provide no tangible or immediate remedy to the initial loss of belongings. Where remedies do exist, people may not have the ability or willingness to engage in the same bureaucratic systems and processes that resulted in the seizure and destruction of their belongings in the first place.

People exposed to street sweeps have expressed difficulties in recovering their belongings from municipalities,³² in some jurisdictions because of the immediate disposal of the seized items.³³ Additionally, as some processes would require the attendance of government offices in-person, unhoused people would be required to either leave their belongings behind and risk further seizure or carrying all their belongings with them to ensure their safety. Processes that involve initiating and following up via internet or phone require access to, and the ability to charge a cellular phone, a difficult task for many precariously housed people. Further barriers exist for people with vulnerable migration status, or people with outstanding criminal or civil charges who may fear being reported when accessing certain remedies.

The lack of meaningful remedies means that impound and disposal of people’s belongings by governmental actors is effectively the same, and has the same impacts, as theft by other third parties. The seizure and disposal of belongings without the ability to get them back, or without access to compensation if the actions were done contrary to the statute or bylaw, means that the victim is made more vulnerable as a result. While, in theory, there are some remedies available for people whose belongings have been seized or destroyed by government actors, either for the return of their belongings, for compensation for their destroyed belongings, or for systemic changes in legislation or enforcement, in practice these processes are largely inaccessible, lengthy, and rarely amount to the return of a person’s belongings.³⁴

Return of belongings as remedy

Depending on the circumstances, location, and jurisdiction from which a person’s belongings were seized, there may be different processes to recover belongings that have not yet been destroyed. Tenancies offer the most protection, requiring the landlord to hold a tenant’s belongings in the event of an eviction or property determined to be abandoned, with the tenant able to approach the local office of the residential tenancies if they have difficulties accessing their belongings.

For precariously housed and unhoused individuals living in accommodations not covered by tenancy legislation, however, there are few clear avenues to recovering belongings seized by the state or non-governmental organizations. Property that is unclaimed or abandoned as determined by city staff or police is held and can be claimed for up to several months, depending on the jurisdiction.³⁵ However unclaimed property legislation often does not include methods for the original owner to claim or recover their belongings, and in some cases even waive government liability for the disposal of the property.³⁶ For items seized in street sweeps or encampment displacement, lack of transparency means that people are often unaware if their belongings have been seized or destroyed or how to locate their belongings after the fact³⁷ in the legislated timeframe.³⁸ If the items are able to be retrieved, some jurisdictions require the owner to sign an undertaking agreeing not to place it on a street or sidewalk again, in addition to paying a fine.³⁹ People who live in accommodations not protected by landlord-tenant legislation, such as shelters or some rooming house situations, have no direct legal recourse comparable to landlord-tenant legislation and therefore must negotiate directly with the shelter provider or landlord, or pursue other legal avenues such as claims in conversion.⁴⁰

In many jurisdictions, ‘personal property deemed abandoned’ or property seized by city staff in street sweeps or encampment closures must be recovered at police stations or from bylaw enforcement. In some cases, this process requires a person to make an appointment ahead of time, and to provide two pieces of identification, one of which must contain name, date of birth, and a photo.⁴¹ Many marginalized community members may not feel safe attending a police station or contacting other enforcement entities to recover belongings, although in some jurisdictions they may designate another person to do so.⁴² In instances when people have been able to recover their belongings from city staff, people have reported that belongings are often missing or damaged.⁴³

Compensation as remedy

When a person’s belongings are seized and subsequently destroyed, people have the option of seeking compensation through legal avenues such as tribunals or small claims civil court. Landlord-tenant tribunals such as the Landlord Tenant Board in Ontario and the Residential Tenancies Branch in B.C. allow tenants to make a claim for belongings destroyed by a landlord illegally, giving tenants a possibility of compensation for destroyed belongings.⁴⁴ However, for those not covered under landlord-tenant legislation, either in indoor accommodations or sheltering outside, claims for compensation could be made through national⁴⁵ or provincial human rights tribunals, or small claims court.

Human rights tribunals can grant monetary and non-monetary remedies to individuals if they experience discrimination on a protected ground (i.e. age, race, disability, gender identity) or protected social area (i.e. housing, employment). These remedies can include compensation for lost wages, compensation for additional costs of obtaining alternate goods, and compensation for pain and suffering, as well as non-monetary remedies such as a requirement that the person or entity cease the discriminatory practice and make available the rights, opportunities, or privileges originally denied.⁴⁶ However, as a ‘social condition’ such as poverty is not recognized as a protected grounds in most provinces and territories, precariously housed and unhoused people would only be able to receive compensation for their destroyed belongings if they could prove that they were discriminated against based on a recognized grounds, such as race, disability, or gender identity.⁴⁷ Source of income is a protected grounds in BC and Ontario, however this is only protected in the area of tenancy.⁴⁸

Compensation can also be sought through Small Claims Court in Ontario, or BC’s Civil Resolution Tribunal, or other potential civil claims. Small claims court processes generally have a two-year limitation period,⁴⁹ and require evidence to back the claim, which could be difficult to provide in moments of crisis and when people’s personal belongings are seized in their entirety. Further, there is a cost of filing claims, however these costs can be waived with proof of low income.⁵⁰Although private law civil claims can lead to compensation for damaged or destroyed belongings, the actions can be lengthy, time consuming, and present significant accessibility issues for unhoused and precariously housed people who often already have limited resources and access to justice issues.⁵¹

Other remedies

When precariously housed and unhoused people’s belongings are seized and destroyed, they have the option of pursuing remedies that push for broader systemic change, rather than compensation or return of the specific belongings. Police complaints and ombudsperson/ombudsman complaints, as well as potential Charter challenges allow for more holistic reviews of legislation and procedures that lead to the destruction of people’s belongings, however each option presents certain limitations of time, cost, and re-traumatization, without addressing the immediate issues that arise due to the destroyed personal belongings.

Complaints about police officers can be made directly to the department in question, or to independent police oversight agencies, such as the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) in Ontario,⁵² or the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner in BC (OPCC)⁵³ and could result in anything from policy changes,⁵⁴ to an officer’s reprimand, suspension, or dismissal,⁵⁵ to the allegations being determined as unsubstantiated and thus the case being closed. Complaints, however, cannot be made anonymously and cannot be made against special constables such as transit or campus police.⁵⁶

Complaints or claims about the conduct of bylaw officers or other city staff or the policies that govern them, however, generally lack similar formal processes as police complaint mechanisms. Initially, such complaints must be made through the local government⁵⁷ within two months of the loss in BC⁵⁸ or two years in Ontario.⁵⁹ In the event that the person making the claim is not satisfied with the outcome, they could pursue legal action as previously discussed, or a complaint to the local or provincial ombudsperson.⁶⁰ Ombudsperson/ombudsman investigations can be lengthy, and are only considered if no other complaints process is available, or if other avenues have been exhausted.

Successful and prospective Charter challenges have arisen in the context of people’s rights to their personal belongings and have had impacts on the success of government injunctions for enforcement against encampments or other forms of visible homelessness. In R v Tanton it was held that Mr. Tanton’s rights to life, liberty, and security of the person (section 7) and right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure (section 8) were violated when police seized his shopping cart that was located with permission on private property.⁶¹ In Victoria (City) v Adams a city bylaw was deemed to violate section 7 Charter rights by preventing people from sheltering in city parks overnight.⁶² The potential for future Charter challenges (ss 2, 7, 12, 15) in this field have been considered, particularly s7 and s15 (discrimination) regarding daytime sheltering as a protected Charter right, and people’s rights to their personal belongings.

A Charter challenge, however, is be a years-long process, is limited to government actions (i.e., not applicable to non-profit shelter providers), would not amount to recovery or compensation for lost belongings, and as such is practically and financially inaccessible for many people.⁶³