Devin’s headlamp cut through the darkness. At the base of the pine trees lining the narrow green strip beside Notre Dame East Boulevard, he was bent, writing on the white backside of a plastic sheet.

It was December 2, and a thin layer of snow covered the ground around his tent. Hearing footsteps approaching, Devin stopped, looked up, and called, “Who’s there?”

Struggling with markers half-frozen in Montreal’s December cold, he proudly explained his work. “I’ve got a good slogan!” he said, pointing to his writing.

“IF you have A MAN or soldier Walk IN [your] home, what will you Do!! This means War. IF A Homeless lose[s] [h]Is home Because of [a] MAN, What will you Do!! Nothing,” he had written on the plastic sheet.

“It’s good, right?” he asked.

Devin was preparing for the arrival of police and city crews who were about to dismantle his tent as part of the city’s efforts to clear encampments of unhoused people along the street near the port of Montreal.He is one of thousands of unhoused people living in encampments across Canada.

Without comprehensive data collection, it is hard to determine the exact number of unhoused individuals in the country. However, estimates suggest at least 35,000 people are unhoused on any given day, with 20 to 25 per cent living in encampments.The response to this growing crisis has been largely uniform across Canadian cities: eviction through “sweeps” and raids. 

Last year, in November, police dismantled an encampment in Vancouver. In October, one in Toronto, and in February, another in Edmonton. Similar evictions have occurred in Barrie, Halifax, and Calgary. These evictions generally involve a heavy police presence, including riot police.

A human rights violation

Politicians ordering the eviction of encampments often describe the process using language such as “restoring safety to parks and public spaces.” Experts and rights activists hold a different view.

Marie-Josée Houle, Canada’s first Federal Housing Advocate, calls these actions a “violation of human rights.” Elisha Hill, a Montreal resident, describes it as “theft” and “attempted murder by putting the lives of citizens in danger.” Harini Sivalingam, Director of the Equality Program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), characterizes it as “criminalizing unhoused people living in encampments.”

Houle, who has visited multiple encampments across the country, emphasizes that homelessness has become a “national human rights crisis” in Canada.

“It’s shameful that in a country as rich as Canada, we have so much visible homelessness. How on earth can we let this happen?” she asks. 

“Eviction of encampments is not the solution,” she says. “Encampments exist because people have nowhere else to go. Evictions, especially forced evictions, create more insecurity. Even the threat of eviction has a massive impact on people, further worsening their mental health and living conditions.”

Provincial and municipal officials in Ontario, Nova Scotia, Ottawa, and other parts of Canada have intensified efforts to pass laws and regulations that grant them greater power to dismantle encampments. According to Harini Sivalingam, this approach poses significant risks to civil liberties.

“It is inhumane, unconstitutional, and a violation of people’s rights,” she says. “In these jurisdictions, the bylaws are criminalising people for being unhoused. They are using the law to penalise people for not having a home, for simply trying to survive.”

The cost of policy failures 

Just before the New Year, as Christmas markets were opening in every corner of cities across Canada, Hill witnessed the removal of a tent near Montreal’s Atwater Market. The tent was removed to make way for a Christmas market.

“It was shocking to see them taking away someone’s only belongings,” recalls Hill, who spent considerable time sending emails to city officials, Christmas market organizers, and the provincial government , demanding alternative solutions.

“It was also shocking to see the exaggerated way they went about it,” she added. “If it was necessary to clear that space, it should have been the job of one or two city employees. Why are we paying for a tractor, a dump truck, several city employees, and police officers to remove one person’s tent?”

Sivalingam, who has long advocated for long-term housing solutions rather than ineffective quick fixes for Canada’s growing encampment crisis, agrees.“Enforcing these policies is ineffective and costs more money than providing accessible housing options for people,” she says.

Sivalingam identifies Canada’s housing crisis as the root cause of encampments. She emphasizes that in the short term, “adequate, accessible, livable” shelters must be provided for unhoused people, while the long-term solution is permanent affordable housing.

A November 2023 study commissioned by the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate supports her views. The study calculates that Canada lacked 4.4 million affordable homes for very low and low-income households. 

Another report revealed that in 2021, approximately 40 per cent of Canadian households spent more than 30 per cent of their before-tax income on rent and utilities, a situation that has worsened in recent years.

For residents like Hill, the lack of affordable accommodation is a harsh reality. “When I returned to Montreal after being away for my studies, I could hardly find a place to live because even the worst-conditioned places had high rents,” she explains. “Montreal used to be an affordable big city, but that’s no longer the case.”

Houle strongly warns that the situation will escalate if officials continue to evade responsibility and attempt to shift the burden onto other government agencies. She emphasized the urgent need for the federal government to take decisive  leadership on the housing crisis.

The Federal Housing Advocate’s review of homeless encampments highlighted the same suggestion, stressing “all governments must strengthen collaboration to address the systems that drive homelessness, including systemic racism and discrimination, and failings in the Canadian child welfare, corrections, healthcare, income security and other systems.”

Despite numerous federal government plans aimed at solving the housing crisis over the past three decades, the situation has not only persisted but worsened—partly because the government has prioritized assisting developers over supporting low-income citizens. One such initiative is the $82+ billion National Housing Strategy, launched in 2017 to provide affordable housing for Canadians under various programs. However, efforts to curb rising housing costs have largely failed.

“The majority of the National Housing Strategy funding hasn’t addressed the real housing crisis—instead, it has benefited developers and for-profit housing,” explains Houle. “The money spent during its early years didn’t serve the public benefit or create affordable homes.”

Houle argues that addressing homelessness requires more than funding—it demands political will, which is currently lacking across Canada’s political spectrum.

“The solution is adequate housing, but it takes time to build and ensure people have homes that meet their needs, where they feel secure,” she adds.“Secure in the sense that they can emotionally invest in their homes—build friendships, form relationships, and feel truly welcomed.”

In its 2025 Alternative Federal Budget, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives outlined a specific plan for how the federal government could lead on building adequate housing—constructing one million new non-market and co-op housing units over 10 years, bringing more private land into public ownership for the construction of non-market affordable rental housing, and dedicating a $3.4 billion homelessness prevention budget, to name a few. But as policymakers ignore expert recommendations—and, far from the buildings where politicians order encampment sweeps, people on the streets face a bitter reality.

In mid-January, the green strip along Montreal’s Notre Dame East Boulevard lay buried under snow. New tents have popped up, replacing those torn down weeks earlier. A man worked quietly, securing wooden boards around his shelter. His cigarette hung loosely from his lips as he glanced around warily.

“What can I do?” he said when asked about the threat of eviction. “Disappear into the air? I’ll move again when they come. I did it five times last year.”