Intimate constraints: a feminist political economy analysis of biological reproduction and parenting in high-support housing in Ontario

Abstract

To date there has been little consideration of the role of housing programs in conditioning the intimate lives of people living with mental illness labels. This article employs a Feminist Political Economy lens with insights from Mad & Disability Studies to interrogate the intimate constraints experienced by some residents in high-support mental health housing in Ontario, Canada. It demonstrates that long-standing medicalized notions of mental illness and system-wide anxiety over the social and financial costs of the reproduction of disabled bodies give rise to these intimate constraints, specifically limitations and control over biological reproduction and parenting practices. In this way, the mechanisms of intimate constraint within high-support housing are not merely holdovers from a time gone by, but are rather part of a mental health care system guided by the principles of neoliberalism under which neo-eugenics is regularly enacted. This is a timely contribution, as the province of Ontario is currently planning to expand the supportive housing system within which highsupport housing is situated and because high-support housing in Ontario is rarely studied in relation to feminist political economy and/or mental health care. This article draws on documentary review of governmental and third-sector materials and 38 semi-structured interviews with service providers and residents in the high-support housing system in Ontario. It situates intimate constraints within the long history of eugenics and neo-eugenics in Ontario and Canada, and the classed, raced, and gendered hierarchy of human bodies that is taking on new forms under neoliberalism.

Geographies of emotional and care labour

“…Foregrounding parenting as both socially valuable and emotionally fulfilling work, Tobin LeBlanc Haley (2017) shows how the constellation of law, governance, and space works to constrain the intimate lives of Mad women living in supported housing in Ontario, Canada. In this case we see how certain forms of emotional and care labour are effectively prohibited by a political, economic, and spatial relation that simultaneously withholds legal rights and the possibility of certain emotional relationships from some women.…”

The Institutional Remains: Transinstitutionalization of Disability & Sexuality

“…In order to construct this systems map I first surveyed literature to identify the various systems that have been included in disability confinement: the carceral system (Isaacs et al, 2014;Ware et al, 2014), the forensic psychiatric system (Joseph, 2015;Penney et al, 2019), the transinstitutionalization of people labeled with intellectual/developmental disabilities (Dubé, 2016;Lin et al, 2019), the psychiatric and mental health system (Dubé, 2016;Farkas & Coe, 2019;Haley, 2017;Suttor, 2016 14 ), the 14 Greg Suttor makes a significant contribution towards a typology of Mental Health and Addictions housing support in Ontario. This model is limited to psychiatric disabilities and omitted what is often considered temporary housing.…”

“…Supportive housing's use of surveillance limits residents' freedoms which is concerning given the lack of affordable housing alternatives. This program only offers permanent housing, something that has increasingly been challenged by residents who desire a transition out of supportive housing (Auditor General, 2014;Haley, 2017). The demand for affordable housing continues to grow; 168,700 households are presently on the waitlist for affordable housing in Ontario (Auditor General, 2014).…”

“…Mental health group homes are operated by not-for-profit agencies and are funded by regional LHINs and municipalities (Auditor General, 2016). Group homes have high levels of surveillance because of the high staff-resident ratio (Haley, 2017). People access group homes by applying through a central access point.…”

“…The containment and control of disabled sexuality are frequently part of the "control" function of institutions that seek to therapeutically reform disabled people through characterizing behaviours as problematic (Chin, 2018;Johnson et al, 2006). Institutions such as group homes, shelters, psychiatric wards, and supportive housing have access to control mechanisms such as chemical restraint, confinement and violence (Government of Ontario, 2018;Haley, 2017;Spivakovsky, 2017), so long as it is done under the auspices of therapeutic, or rehabilitative intervention (MCCSS, 2017). Shelters can expel clients who demonstrate "disorderly behavior", thereby creating a standard of behaviour that is enforced through surveillance by workers, and the ability to evict clients onto the street (Stuart, 2014).…”