Supportive housing and surveillance

Abstract

Urban centres in the US, Britain and Canada have responded to identified visible ‘social problems’ such addiction, mental health and homelessness by providing some supportive housing for the urban poor and marginalized. While some critics have questioned what supportive housing specifically entails in terms of the built environment, what remains under explored, though a growing area of concern, is the relationship between surveillance and supportive housing for urban residents identified as having addiction and mental health problems — a gap addressed in this paper. Drawing upon qualitative ethnographic observational data we examine some of the measures of control and coercion that are encroaching into social housing primarily established for poor and marginalized people with addiction and mental health problems in the urban centre of Vancouver, Canada. We witnessed three modes of regulation and control, that vary widely, among the residencies observed: physical surveillance technologies; site-specific modes of coercion; police presence and staff surveillance, which all together impact the everyday lives of residents living in low-income and supportive housing. We argue that supportive housing has the potential to provide its intended commitment— safe and secure affordable housing. However, owing to an (over)emphasis on ‘security’, the supportive housing we observed were also sites of social control.

Negotiating space & drug use in emergency shelters with peer witness injection programs within the context of an overdose crisis: A qualitative study

“…Our participants described similar experiences when navigating public spaces and other high-barrier shelter spaces. Further, similar to research on surveillance and social control of PWUD through public health interventions (Boyd, Cunningham, Anderson, & Kerr, 2016; Fischer et al, 2004; Szott, 2014), our study demonstrates that even the most well-intentioned harm reduction interventions can have their limitations, particularly given the structural vulnerabilities of homeless PWUD in the context of other overarching social, structural, and physical environments that foster social control and internalized surveillance. This begs the question of how to provide supportive spaces for drug use while also effectively addressing overdose risk given the internalization of drug-using norms and expectations.…”

Materialities in supported housing for people with mental health problems: a blurry picture of the tenants

“…On the one hand, congregate settings may architecturally resemble care homes with their added focus on surveillance technologies (Boyd et al . 2016) or fire safety (Friesinger et al . 2019b), both of which can exaggerate the otherness of tenants, while independent settings could be viewed as more or less ordinary private homes.…”

Transitions in income generation among marginalized people who use drugs: A qualitative study on recycling and vulnerability to violence

“…Vancouver, Canada’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) neighbourhood is the site of complex social-structural tensions inherent to neoliberal policies, with entrenched poverty and drug use occurring in the context of rapid gentrification and economic restructuring. Social-structural inequality stemming from neoliberal urbanism, including federal disinvestment in low-income housing, increased contract and temporary work, insufficient and stagnant levels of income assistance and the emergence of new forms of carceral control (e.g., surveillance expansion, targeted policing), shape the everyday lives of PWUD in this neighbourhood (Boyd et al, 2016; Krebs et al, 2016). Over the past several decades, these forms of structural violence have driven epidemics of gendered violence (Bungay, 2010; Culhane, 2003; Jiwani & Young, 2006; Oppal, 2012; Shannon et al, 2008b), fatal and non-fatal overdose and infectious disease outbreaks (HIV, Hepatitis C) (BC Coroners Service 2017; Wood et al, 2007), while disproportionately impacting women, gender minorities, and Indigenous peoples (Amnesty International 2009; Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, 2014; Lyons et al, 2016).…”