Using Community-Engaged Arts-Based Methods to Explore Housing Insecurity in Rural-Urban Spaces

Authors

  • Laura Pin Wilfrid Laurier University
  • Tobin LeBlanc Haley Univeristy of New Brunswick
  • Leah Levac University of Guelph

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15402/esj.v10i2.70849

Keywords:

homelessness, digital storytelling, Arts-based methods, point-in-time count, rural-urban, critical arts-based methods, community-engaged research

Abstract

This article explores how community-engaged, art-based research methods can enrich our understanding of homelessness, with a specific focus on housing insecurity in rural urban communities. Drawing on a digital storytelling project in Dufferin County, Ontario, involving twelve storytellers- ten with lived experience of homelessness - we explore the complexities of homelessness that are often neglected in official narratives of housing and home. We argue that the dominant methods of documenting homelessness - enumeration through point-in-time (PiT) counts - provide a limited understanding of homelessness and can contribute to the invisibility of these problems in rural-urban spaces. We explore how a participant-led critical engagement can help make visible experiences of housing insecurity as a form of homelessness, and direct focus to the intersection of individual circumstances with structural factors, pointing to key areas for policy change.

Author Biographies

Laura Pin, Wilfrid Laurier University

(she/her) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University. Her research and teaching focuses on community-engaged approaches to public policy, especially in the areas of housing policy, local government, and social policy. Email: lpin@wlu.ca 

Tobin LeBlanc Haley, Univeristy of New Brunswick

(she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social Science at the University of New Brunswick and the co-director of the Housing, Moblization and Engagement -Research Lab. She is a community-engaged, social policy scholar who works at the intersection of housing, disability and poverty. 

Leah Levac, University of Guelph

(she/her) is an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Critical Community Engagement and Public Policy (Tier 2) at the University of Guelph in the Department of Political Science. Her research and teaching focus on community engaged scholarship, intersectionality and policymaking, particularly in local policy and federal impact assessment policy. 

References

Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario. (2021). Vacancy decontrol—What is it and why does it matter? https://www.acto.ca/vacancy-decontrol-what-is-it-and-why-does-it-matter/

Agans, R.P., Jefferson, M.T., Bowling, J.M., Zeng, D., Yang, J., & Silverbush, M. (2014). Enumerating the hidden homeless: Strategies to estimate the homeless gone missing from a point-in-time count. Journal of Official Statistics, 30(2), 215-229. https://doi.org/10.2478/jos-2014-0014

Bay, J.L., & Yankura Swacha, K. (2020). Community-engaged research as enmeshed practice. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 26(1), 121-141. https://doi.org/10.3998/ mjcsloa.3239521.0026.108

Beaulieu, A., Breton, M., & Brousselle, A. (2018). Conceptualizing 20 years of engaged scholarship: A scoping review. PLoS ONE, 13(2), Article e0193201. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0193201

Benbow, S., Forchuk, C., Berman, H., Gorlick, C., & Ward-Griffin, C. (2019). Spaces of exclusion: Safety, stigma, and surveillance of mothers experiencing homelessness. Canadian Journal of Nursing Research, 51(3), 202-213. https://doi.org/10.1177/0844562119859138

Boilevin, L., Chapman, J., Deane, L., Doerksen, C., Fresz, G., Joe, D. J., Leech-Crier, N., Marsh, S., McLeod, J., Neufeld, S., & Pham, S. (2017). Research 101: A manifesto for ethical research into the downtown eastside. Homeless Hub. https://www.homelesshub.ca/resource/research- 101-manifesto-ethical-researchdowntown-eastside

Buck‐McFadyen, E. (2022). Competing perspectives on rural homelessness: Findings from a qualitative study in Ontario, Canada. Health & Social Care in the Community, 30(5), e2003-e2011. https://doi.org/10.1111/hsc.13633

Bunting, T., Walks, A.R., & Filion, P. (2004). The uneven geography of housing affordability stress in Canadian metropolitan areas. Housing Studies, 19(3), 361-393. https://doi.org/10.1080/0267303042000204287

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. (2023). Rental market report: January 2023 edition. https://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/-/media/sites/cmhc/professional/housing-markets-data-and-research/market-reports/rental-market-report/rental-market-report-2022-en.ashx

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. (2021, March 16). City of Toronto secures space in hotels for every person living in 4 ‘priority’ encampment sites. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/city-toronto-secures-hotel-space-every-person-four-priority-encampents-1.5952510

Dej, E. (2020). A complex exile: Homelessness and social exclusion in Canada. UBC Press.

Dej, E., Gaetz, S., & Schwan, K. (2020). Turning off the tap: A typology for homelessness prevention. The Journal of Primary Prevention, 41(5), 397-412. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10935-020-00607-y

Deleu, H., Schrooten, M., & Hermans, K. (2023). Hidden homelessness: A scoping review and avenues for further inquiry. Social Policy and Society, 22(2), 282-298. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1474746421000476

Donaldson, J., Gaetz, S., & Turner, A. (2018). Point-in-Time Count toolkit. Canadian Observatory on Homelessness Press. https://www.homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/download-chapter/PiT%20Count%20Toolkit%202020%20Final.pdf

Dufferin County. (2018). Country of Dufferin 10-year housing and homelessness plan, 2018 report card. [Infographic]. https://www.Dufferincounty.ca/sites/default/files/housing/2018%2010%20Year%20Plan%20Report%20Card.pdf

Dufferin County. (2021a). Country of Dufferin 10-year housing and homelessness plan, 2021 report card [Infographic]. https://www.dufferincounty.ca/wpcontent/uploads/2024/03/2021-10-Year-Plan-Annual-Report-Card-Infographic.pdf

Dufferin County. (2021b). Country of Dufferin 10-year housing and homelessness plan: 2021 update. [Infographic]. https://www.dufferincounty.ca/wpcontent/uploads/2024/03/2021-10-Year- Housing-Plan-Update-003.pdf

Finley, S. (2011). Critical arts-based inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (pp. 435-450). Sage.

Francisco-Menchavez, V., & Tungohan, E. (2020). Mula sa masa, tungo sa masa, From the people, for the people: Building migrant worker capacity through participatory action research. Migration Letters, 17(2), 257–64. https://doi.org/10.59670/ml.v17i2.768

Gaetz, S., Barr, C., Friesen, A., Harris, B., Hill, C., Kovacs-Burns, K., Pauly, B., Pearce, B.,

Turner, A., & Marsolais, A. (2012). Canadian definition of homelessness. Canadian Observatory on Homelessness Press. https://www.homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/attachments/COH-Canadian%20Definition%20of%20Homelessness.pdf

Gaetz, S., Dej, E., Richter, T., & Redman, M. (2016). The state of homelessness in Canada 2016. Canadian Observatory on Homelessness Press. https://homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/ SOHC16_final_20Oct2016.pdf

Greenberg, M. (2021). Seeking shelter: How housing and urban exclusion shape exurban disaster. Sociologica, 15(1), 67-89. https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/11869

Home [Video]. 2012. Dufferin Country. https://www.dufferinchange.ca/post/home-a-compelling-digital-story

Infrastructure Canada. (2024). Everyone counts 2020-2022–Results from the third nationally coordinated Point-in-Time Counts of homelessness in Canada. (Catalogue No. T94-54/2024E-PDF). https://www.infrastructure.gc.ca/homelessness-sans-abri/reports-rapports/pit-counts-dp-2020-2022-results-resultats-eng.html

Kaufman, D. (2022). Expulsion: A type of forced mobility experienced by homeless people in Canada. Urban Geography, 43(3), 321-343. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2020.1853919

Levac, L., Buchnea, A., Pin, L., Karyar, R., Annan, J., Morton, E., & Malenfant, J. (2022). A national housing strategy by and for whom? Documented experiences of people with living knowledge of housing need. National Housing Council. https://assets.cmhcschl.gc.ca/sites/ place-to-call-home/pdfs/national-housing-council/nhs-a-national-housing-strategy-by-and-for-whom-en.pdf Levac, L., Cattapan, A., Haley, T. L., Pin, L., Tungohan, E., & Wiebe, S. M. (2022). Transforming public policy with engaged scholarship: better together. Policy & Politics, 50(3), 403-424.

Levac, L., & Denis, A.B. (2019). Combining feminist intersectional and community-engaged research commitments: Adaptations for scoping reviews and secondary analyses of national data sets. Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement, 12(1), Article 16. https://doi.org/10.5130/ijcre.v12i1.6193

MacDonald, S.A., & Gaulin, D. (2020). The invisibility of rural homelessness in a Canadian context. Journal of Social Distress and Homelessness, 29(2), 169-183. https://doi.org/10.1080/1053078 9.2019.1688540

Malenfant, J.A., Nichols, N., & Schwan, K. (2019). Chasing funding “to eat our own tail”: The invisible emotional work of making social change. Canadian Journal of Nonprofit and Social Economy Research, 10(2). https://doi.org/10.29173/cjnser.2019v10n2a307

Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. (2021, March 12). Minister’s directive: Enumeration of homelessness. Government of Ontario. https://www.ontario.ca/page/ministers-directive-enumeration-homelessness

Mokos, J.T. (2022). Engaging the complexities of community: Conflict and difference in community-engaged research. GeoJournal, 87(Suppl. 2), 223-234. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-021-10397-3

Nelson, A. (2020). Nothing about us without us: Centering lived experience and revolutionary care in efforts to end and prevent homelessness in Canada. Radical Housing Journal, 2(2): 83-100. https://doi.org/10.54825/IMUC6661

Norman, T., & Pauly, B. (2013). Including people who experience homelessness: A scoping review of the literature. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 33(3/4), 136-151.

Odd, M., & Erfani, A. (2023). Homelessness in the district of Nipissing of Ontario, Canada before, at the onset and during the Covid-19 pandemic: A trend analysis (2018–2021). BMC Public Health 23, Article 1388. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-16314-2.

Pin, L., & Haley, T. L. (2022). On The Edge of the Bubble: Homelessness and Near Homelessness on the Rural-Urban Fringe in Canada. Journal of Rural and Community Development, 17(4).

Plage, S., Kuskoff, E., Parsell, A., Clarke, A., Ablaza, C., & Perales, F. (2023) Longing for a forever home: Ontological insecurity is collectively produced in fixed-term supportive housing for families. Housing, Theory and Society, 40(3), 394-410. https://doi.org/10.1080/14036096.20 23.2173287

Pomeroy, S. (2022). Updating analysis on erosion of lower rent stock from 2021 census. Canadian Housing Evidence Collaborative. https://chec-ccrl.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ Updated-Analysis-on-Housing-Erosion-from-2021-Census-Steve-Pomeroy.pdf

Poverty and Homelessness. [Video]. Dufferin Country. Dufferin Country. https://www.dufferinchange.ca/post/poverty-and-homelessness

Randle, J., Hu, Z., & Thurston, Z. (2021). Housing experiences in Canada: Black people in 2018. (Catalogue No. 46-28-0001).

Statistics Canada. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/46- 28-0001/2021001/article/00006-eng.htm

Rice, C., Cook, K., & Bailey, K. A. (2021). Difference-attuned witnessing: Risks and potentialities of arts- https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353520955142

Rice, C., & Mündel, I. (2018). Story‐making as methodology: Disrupting dominant stories through multimedia storytelling. Canadian Review of Sociology, 55(2), 211-231. https://doi.org/10.1111/cars.12190

Ros-Tonen, M., Pouw, N., & Bavinck, M. (2015). Governing beyond cities: The urban-rural interface. In J. Gupta, K. Pfeffer, H. Verrest, & M. Ros-Tonen (Eds.), Geographies of Urban Governance (pp. 85–105). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21272-2_5

Schiff, J.W., Schiff, R., Turner, A., & Bernard, K. (2015). Rural homelessness in Canada: Directions for planning and research. Journal of Rural and Community Development, 10(4): 85-106.

Schiff, R., Wilkinson, A., Kelford, T., Pelletier, S., & Schiff, J. W. (2023). Counting the undercounted: Enumerating rural homelessness in Canada. International Journal on Homelessness, 3(2), 51-67. https://doi.org/10.5206/ijoh.2022.2.14633

Schneider, M., Brisson, D., & Burnes, D. (2016). Do we really know how many are homeless?: An analysis of the point-in-time homelessness count. Families in Society, 97(4), 321-329.

Schneider, B., Chamberlain, K., & Hodgetts, D. (2010). Representations of homelessness in four Canadian newspapers: Regulation, control, and social order. Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, 37(4), Article 8. https://doi.org/10.15453/0191-5096.3564

Schwan, K., Vaccaro, M., Reid, L., Ali, N., & Baig, K. (2021). The pan-Canadian women’s housing & homelessness survey. Canadian Observatory on Homelessness. https://womenshomelessness.ca/wp-content/uploads/EN-Pan-Canadian-Womens-Housing-Homelessness-Survey-FINAL-28- Sept-2021.pdf

Scott, A.J., Carter, C., Reed, M.R., Larkham, P., Adams, D., Morton, N., ... & Coles, R. (2013). Disintegrated development at the rural–urban fringe: Re-connecting spatial planning theory and practice. Progress in planning, 83, 1-52. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.progress.2012.09.001

Smith, A. (2015). Can we compare homelessness across the Atlantic? A comparative study of methods for measuring homelessness in North America and Europe1. European Journal of Homelessness, 9(2), 233-257.

Smith, C., & Castañeda-Tinoco, E. (2019). Improving homeless point-in-time counts: Uncovering the marginally housed. Social Currents, 6(2), 91-104. https://doi.org/10.1177/2329496518812451

Statistics Canada. (2023). Census profile, 2021 census of population. (Catalogue number 98-316-X2021001). https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/prof/index. cfm?Lang=E

Statistics Canada. (2018). Waitlist status including length of time, by tenure including social and affordable housing, 2018, inactive. (Table 46-10-0042-01). https://doi.org/10.25318/4610004201-eng

Thistle, J. (2017). Indigenous definition of homelessness in Canada. Canadian Observatory on Homelessness Press. http://hdl.handle.net/10315/41247

Tremblay, C. & Hall, B.L. (2014). Learning from community–university research partnerships: a Canadian study on community impact and conditions for success. International Journal of Action Research, 10(3), 376–404.

Vandenbeld Giles, M. (2020). Not a home: Shelter families living in Canadian motels. Current Sociology, 68(5), 701-718. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392120927739

Waegemakers Schiff, J., Schiff, R., & Turner, A. (2016). Rural homelessness in Western Canada: Lessons learned from diverse communities. Social Inclusion, 4(4), 73-85. https://doi. org/10.17645/si.v4i4.633

Walker, G. (2010). Class as social formation in the ex-urban fringe. In K. Beasely (Ed.), The rural-urban fringe in Canada: Conflict and controversy (pp, 2–9). Rural Development Institute.

Warren, M. R., Calderón, J., Kupscznk, L.A., Squires, G., & Su, C. (2018). Is collaborative, community-engaged scholarship more rigorous than traditional scholarship? On advocacy, bias, and social science research. Urban Education, 53(4), 445–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085918763511

Wang, Q., Coemans, S., Siegesmund, R., & Hannes, K. (2017). Arts-based methods in socially engaged research practice: A classification framework. Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal, 2(2), 5-39. https://doi.org/10.18432/R26G8P

Woodhall-Melnik, J., Dunn, J., Svenson, S., Hamilton-Wright, S., Patterson, C., Waterfield, D., Kirst, M., & Matheson, I. (2017). Finding a place to start: Exploring meanings of housing stability in Hamilton’s male Housing First participants. Housing, Theory and Society, 34(3), 359-375.

Downloads

Published

2024-08-21

How to Cite

Pin, L., LeBlanc Haley, T., & Levac, L. (2024). Using Community-Engaged Arts-Based Methods to Explore Housing Insecurity in Rural-Urban Spaces. Engaged Scholar Journal: Community-Engaged Research, Teaching, and Learning, 10(2), 23–41. https://doi.org/10.15402/esj.v10i2.70849

Similar Articles

<< < > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.