Based on the recent research paper “Sheltering in Parks“
While homelessness has increased in Canada over the past eight years, the public spaces where unhoused people can legally shelter are shrinking dramatically. A new study of four Canadian municipalities (Vancouver, Prince George, Kingston, and Hamilton) led by BSH Director Dr. Alexandra Flynn reveals how bylaws systematically restrict where people can seek temporary shelter, often pushing them away from essential services.
Read the ReportBackground: A Deepening Crisis
The 2019 National Housing Strategy Act recognized housing as a fundamental right, Canadian cities face an alarming homelessness crisis. Nearly 60,000 people across 74 communities were homeless on a single night in 2024—almost double the 2018 figure. Those in unsheltered locations, including encampments, quadrupled over this period, growing from 14% to 28% of the homeless population.
The crisis disproportionately impacts Indigenous peoples (over two-thirds of Prince George’s homeless population), women (over half in Hamilton, up from 28% in 2016), and 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals. Many face multiple health challenges: over 80% of Hamilton’s homeless respondents reported at least one health condition, while two-thirds in Vancouver reported two or more. Chronic homelessness (six months or longer) affects over 80% in Prince George and nearly three-quarters in Vancouver.
The Legal Framework
The landmark 2009 Victoria (City) v. Adams case established that when accessible shelter is insufficient, people have a constitutional right to erect temporary overnight shelter in public parks. This right is conditional, triggered only when homeless individuals outnumber available accessible beds, and confined to nighttime hours.
Since 2009, courts have clarified that ‘accessible’ means more than counting beds. Shelters must be practically available, accounting for couples, pets, disabilities, harm reduction needs, safety, and proximity to services. Since 2019, numerous cases in the four study cities have tested these principles, revealing deep tensions between municipal enforcement and survival needs. Municipalities use their bylaws as a way to regulate homelessness, amending them to respond to the local crisis. This report provides a snapshot of the bylaws of four cities up to mid-2025.
Four Cities, Four Stories of Restriction
Vancouver, British Columbia
Vancouver’s bylaws shifted from permissive to prohibitive with shocking speed. The September 2020 Parks Control Bylaw allowed 23.81% of park area (2.77 sq km) for temporary shelters, potentially accommodating over 10,000 tents. By April 2024, this dropped to 0.08%—just 0.01 sq km—capable of allowing only 53-72 shelters.
Most critically, the 2024 bylaw eliminated virtually all overlap between permitted sheltering and essential services. Despite over half of Vancouver’s homeless population residing in the Downtown Eastside, bylaws pushed permitted areas to the periphery. Service request data confirms this tension: from 2020-2024, the majority of encampment complaints came from Downtown and the West End (where services cluster but sheltering is prohibited), while West Point Grey—the only permitted area—averaged just three to six requests monthly from 2021-2023.
Prince George, British Columbia
Prince George’s Safe Streets Bylaw (2021) and Parks and Open Space Bylaw effectively prohibit sheltering across city-owned lands, until a 2023 amendment which allowed people experiencing homelessness to erect temporary overnight shelters (7:00 pm to 9:00 am only) in the area designated by the city.
Less than 1% of permitted park-space falls within 600 meters of hospitals, healthcare services, or shelters. This is deeply problematic given that over 80% of Prince George’s homeless population experiences chronic homelessness and have increasing needs for addiction, mental health, and medical services.
The city’s two major encampments—The Splits and Moccasin Flats—were located close to downtown precisely because of proximity to services. Court cases in 2021 and 2022 prevented closure when adequate accessible housing was not available, but that did not stop the city from trying to relocate many residents from Moccasin Flats into supportive housing. The city’s effort to close the encampment because of the “intrusions on the neighbourhood” ultimately failed due to the court’s decision that, “in the face of the Stewart Order, none of this entitled the City to dismantle much of the Lower Patricia [Moccasin Flats] encampment before returning to court to seek an order to do so.” Only in 2025, after new low-barrier supportive housing opened, did courts permit closures and allow exemption applications.
Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton’s approach illustrates regulatory instability. The 2020 Protocol allowed 6.6 sq km of park space (23.4% of total parks) for temporary shelters. By August 2023, this fell to 1.7 sq km (5.9%). Service-proximate permitted space dropped from 20% to 10% between 2020 and 2023. Critically, only 0.2% of permitted area was within 600 meters of supports, services, and programs specific to Indigenous populations. “This stands in contradiction to the stated objectives of Hamilton’s encampment protocol, which aims to “create stability of location, where unhoused community members can keep connections with service providers” and “enable service providers and local organizations the ability to better serve the health and safety needs of individuals in encampments” (City of Hamilton, 2024a).”
In March 2025, Hamilton rescinded its Protocol entirely, reverting to a Parks Bylaw prohibiting all camping throughout the city.
This complete prohibition exists despite a shelter capacity crisis: nearly 4,800 turn-aways occurred between 2019 and mid-2022, half due to bed unavailability. Predictably, most encampment complaints come from service-rich Wards 2 and 3 (which had minimal permitted space), while Wards 9 and 15 had more permitted area but fewer services—forcing impossible choices between legal compliance and survival.
Kingston, Ontario
Kingston’s situation differs due to judicial intervention. The Parks Use Bylaw prohibits camping, but a 2023 court decision (Corporation of the City of Kingston v. Doe) found the city’s request to dismantle the encampment unconstitutional as it was in breach of the Charter, as evidence showed that “exposure to the elements at night without adequate shelter can result in serious and life-threatening conditions.” The court therefore allowed an exception permitting temporary shelter from one hour before sunset to one hour after sunrise.
This modification allowed approximately 3.66 sq km—about two-thirds of overall park area—for nighttime sheltering. However, only 21% falls within 400 meters of critical services, and less than 1% is within 600 meters of hospitals. The court declined to extend protection to daytime, requiring individuals to dismantle shelters each morning—severely complicating healthcare access for people carrying all possessions.
The Findings Paint a Somber Picture
Drastic Reduction in Available Space: Permitted sheltering space has been dramatically reduced across all cities. Hamilton went from 23% to 0%. Vancouver dropped from 23.8% to less than 0.1%. Even Kingston’s most permissive regime (approximately 62%) restricts this to overnight hours only.
Geographic Displacement from Services: A fundamental spatial mismatch exists—encampments cluster where services are concentrated, but bylaws push permitted sheltering to peripheral areas. Vancouver has no permitted space within 600 meters of critical services. Prince George has less than 1%. Hamilton reduced service-proximate space from 20% to zero. This creates impossible choices: comply with bylaws and lose healthcare access or remain near services and face constant enforcement.
Disproportionate Impact: Restrictions disproportionately harm marginalized groups. Indigenous peoples, who experience homelessness at rates vastly exceeding their population share, are pushed from culturally-specific services. In Hamilton, only 0.2% of permitted area (when the Protocol existed) was within 600 meters of Indigenous services. Women—now over half of Hamilton’s homeless population—struggle in shelter systems predominantly designed for men.
Daily Displacement Cycle: Temporal restrictions requiring morning dismantling create cascading hardships. Individuals must pack and carry all possessions, including medications and identification, just to access services. This daily cycle disrupts medical care, severs outreach relationships, and risks property loss, requiring some to choose between accessing life-saving care and deeper crisis.
Constitutional Vulnerability: Many restrictions violate Section 7 Charter rights established in Victoria v. Adams. Yet challenging these bylaws is extraordinarily difficult. People living in encampments often lack the time, resources, stability, and legal knowledge needed to challenge these bylaws. This inequity creates structural imbalance where municipalities impose restrictions knowing those most affected are least able to challenge them.
Enforcement Without Solutions: Service request data reveals that bylaws create displacement cycles rather than solutions. In Vancouver, most complaints come from the Downtown and West End despite (or because of) sheltering being prohibited. Hamilton’s service-rich Wards 2 and 3 account for the most complaints despite minimal permitted space. Restrictive bylaws do not eliminate encampments—they criminalize survival.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Stop Treating Encampments as Nuisances: Municipal responses must shift from viewing encampments as regulatory problems to recognizing them as symptoms of systemic housing failure. Bylaws that simply displace people without addressing root causes entrench cycles of precarity while exposing municipalities to constitutional challenges.
Align Local Practice with Legal Obligations: Canada has recognized housing as a human right through the National Housing Strategy Act and international treaties. Municipal bylaws that restrict overnight shelter beyond minimum constitutional standards create a dangerous gap between legal commitments and local enforcement.
Recognize Service Access as Fundamental: Geographic proximity to healthcare, mental health support, harm reduction, and food access are not a preference—they are core to accessibility. Bylaws should map critical services and ensure permitted areas fall within walkable distances to services (200-600 meters), especially given that daily setup/teardown requirements make distance more critical.
Provide Regulatory Stability: The rapid shifts in Hamilton’s and Vancouver’s regulations, from permissive to prohibitive, create chronic uncertainty that deepens vulnerability. People experiencing homelessness need predictable frameworks, not rules that change faster than they can adapt.
Improve Coordination Across Government Levels: The fragmentation between federal housing rights recognition, provincial health, and municipal park enforcement creates harmful policy gaps. All levels of government must work together to develop integrated, rights-based approaches rather than siloed responses that criminalize survival.
Address the Constitutional Vulnerability: Municipalities advancing restrictive frameworks appear to assume unhoused residents lack resources for constitutional challenges. This is both morally indefensible and legally unstable. Courts have established clear thresholds, and bylaws that fall below these standards risk being removed by higher courts.
Invest in Actual Solutions: Regulatory restriction is not housing policy. Municipalities must redirect energy from bylaw enforcement to addressing the crisis through deeply affordable housing, low-barrier supportive housing for complex needs, harm reduction services, and culturally-appropriate options for specific groups.
Zooming Out
The choice is clear: municipalities can continue regulatory approaches that criminalize visible homelessness while risking legal challenges, or they can align local practice with constitutional protections, statutory commitments, and human rights obligations by investing in real solutions that address systemic housing failure.
The full report, “Sheltering in Parks: Mapping the Implications of Local Bylaws on Unhoused Populations,” was prepared by Dr. Alexandra Flynn (Principal Investigator), Morika Kakinuma DeAngelis and Jeff Allen (GIS Analysis), and Selina Jiang, Jennifer Nguyen, and Kiera Schuller (JD Research Assistants), with financial support the Law Foundation of British Columbia. Full reports are available on University of British Columbia’s Housing Research Collaborative’s and University of Toronto’s School of Cities’ websites.
Read the ReportThe Balanced Supply of Housing (BSH) is a SSHRC-CMHC funded partnership grant led by Dr. Alexandra Flynn at UBC’s Peter A. Allard School of Law, focused on land use and housing financialization across Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal.
