Stigma and Lesser-Known Forms of Hidden Homelessness

This article was co-authored with Jack Davis and Shea Smith and published in Visions Journal. Sadly, Shea unexpectedly passed away a few weeks before it was published. Shea had been targetted by Bylaw and police for years, leading to him being alone and isolated at the time of his death, as is discussed in this article. Shea produced a podcast called the Homeless Idea, which you should listen to. Shea was an amazing advocate, orator, and friend, and he’ll be deeply missed.

At a Victoria City Council meeting on July 18, 2024, City Councillor Marg Gardiner could not have been clearer in her public approval of stigma. Gardiner said the quiet part out loud when she proclaimed: “There is stigma, and I want there to be stigma, because I don’t want people to think that the use of drugs is normalized for us or our children and grandchildren. That has scared me for years…”¹

This type of fear towards people who use drugs is not usually expressed so openly. Nonetheless, it often informs the decisions of government officials. When city councils vote to close parks to sheltering, when provinces criminalize substance use in public space or ban harm reduction services, the driving force is stigma, NIMBYism (i.e., not in my backyard) and discrimination. This kind of stigma has devastating impacts on people sheltering outside, forcing them to be invisible, both physically and socially.

Hidden homelessness is often understood as a type of homelessness where people temporarily live with friends or family without guarantee of continued residency (often referred to as “couch surfing”), or when people access short-term accommodations without any sort of legal rights, such as tenancy rights.²

As two of the authors of this article have lived and living experience of homelessness, however, we argue that stigma, discrimination and NIMBYism against people forced to shelter outside create two different versions of “hidden homelessness” that are not often considered.

Socially invisible

First, stigma makes people feel they’ve become, and must stay, “socially invisible.” When elected officials announce their own endorsement of stigma in the public forum, it gives the general public and law enforcement a free pass to openly stigmatize and discriminate when they see people surviving in public space.

Being chased out from every possible public space, whether by security, police, NIMBY neighbours, park staff or bylaw officers, people experiencing homelessness are being told they are not part of society, they are unwelcome or that they are dangerous and abnormal. Because of this, existing in normal social spaces, such as parks, restaurants or grocery stores, feels unwelcome and unsafe. There’s a feeling that, no matter what you do, no matter how positive you are or how closely you comply with the bylaws, you will not escape judgment, public scorn or violent enforcement.

This stigma is perfected by law enforcement that devalues people’s personal belongings. The regular impounding and destruction of belongings makes people feel that their material belongings, even the ones required for survival, have no meaning or value. This disconnection from personal belongings changes how a person can relate to others in social situations. Some feel they don’t deserve to make eye contact as people pass them by, for example. Being treated as abnormal and having personal property treated as trash leads to mistrust and fear.

Out of self-protection, people sheltering outdoors avoid seeking help, accessing services, going to work, going to the doctor or being part of the broader community. It creates the socially hidden homeless: a group of people who either must hide their homelessness or avoid social settings altogether to avoid the harms of stigma.

Physically invisible

Second, stigma leads to a form of hidden homelessness among people sheltering outside by forcing them to become physically invisible while living in public space. When politicians like Marg Gardiner openly admit that they support stigma and others repeatedly push for the removal of people experiencing homelessness from their neighbourhood, it leads to policies and bylaws that displace people and permit city workers to destroy their belongings on a daily basis.

Law enforcement personnel and city workers enforce bylaws in the name of preventing people from becoming “entrenched” as homeless in public places. But we say the bylaws themselves treat unhoused people as less than human. The unhoused community is expected to show respect for anti-sheltering bylaws that force them to constantly move with nowhere to go and prioritize housed neighbours’ recreation over the unhoused community’s literal survival.³

It is effectively impossible to exist with the items a person needs to survive while complying with bylaws that prohibit daytime sheltering. A person has to make themselves physically invisible or hidden. Those who can’t do so on their own are made invisible by cities through the forceful impounding and destruction of their belongings by law enforcement.

The end goal of NIMBYism is not having visible, physical homelessness in the neighbourhoods in question. But when there is no other practical place for people to go, the only possible end to NIMBY logic is to lock people up in institutions—that is, criminalization of poverty and homelessness—or to have them become permanently invisible, by increasing their risk of death.⁴

This is perhaps the ultimate form of hidden homelessness, and the unspoken goal of politicians who thrive and feed off of fear and perpetuation of discrimination and stigma.

Let’s make stigma invisible

When politicians openly declare their disdain for people who use drugs and people experiencing homelessness, stigma is normalized. When stigma is normalized, people are forced into hidden homelessness—either social or physical invisibility, or both.

If society’s common goal is to end homelessness and reduce the harms related to substance use, which we can hopefully all agree on, what really needs to become invisible are harmful, dated views, like those of Victoria City Councillor Marg Gardiner, and the policies they inform.

About the authors

Shea Smith is creator, producer and host of The Homeless Idea podcast. He is a tireless advocate for the human and Charter rights of people in the unhoused community and those who live in supportive housing

Jack Davis has lived in Victoria for several years and is an outspoken advocate for the unhoused

Nic Olson is from Treaty 4 Territory and has engaged in anti-poverty work for over a decade