The Bylaw State

Nicholas Blomley, Chair, Department of Geography, Simon Fraser University

“This important and timely book alerts us to the powerful and overlooked work of the bylaw in regulating the unhoused. Bylaws are easily overlooked as technical, petty, or antiquated. Flynn and Hermer, however, urge us to take them seriously, revealing their powerful, dehumanizing and exclusionary effects. To fully understand the injustice of the unhoused, they insist, requires careful attention to the alchemy of the bylaw.”

Heidi Kiiwetinepinesiik Stark (Turtle Mountain Ojibwe), Associate Professor, University of Victoria

“This empirical and date-driven study remains accessible without simplifying the problems it addresses or reducing the stakes. Attentive to settler-colonialism and the disproportionate impacts experienced by Indigenous, racialized and marginalized people, this book serves as a national call, reminding us that the housing crisis has not just become the central battleground over property, poverty and the public, but also for our humanity.”

Jonathan Simon, Lance Robbins Professor of Criminal Justice Law, UC Berkeley School of Law

“The authoritarian government that many of us in North America today fear will come from the top of the state in the form of legislation and executive orders, is already here at the bottom in the form of local bylaws and ordinances designed to provide for public order and safety but increasingly used for the long term governance of the unhoused among us. In The Bylaw State, Flynn and Hermer open a door to a side of modern democracy more pervasive than the carceral state, and for many of the most vulnerable among us, just as destructive. A vital contribution to contemporary socio-legal studies.”

Marie-Josée Houle, Federal Housing Advocate

“The Bylaw State is an important addition to the conversation on how to address homelessness, and it comes at a critical time. Governments are neglecting their human rights obligations and turning to criminalization and enforcement in response to homelessness and encampments. As Federal Housing Advocate, I have heard consistently that bylaws that criminalize homelessness and allow encampment evictions are causing greater harms and instability. As Flynn and Hermer explain, centering dignity, accountability, and legal obligations at the heart of solutions allows municipalities to address homelessness with the urgency and compassion that the crisis demands.”

John Sewell, former Mayor, City of Toronto

“The Bylaw State describes in legal detail the magical thinking municipal councils engage in as they pass bylaws to address the social problems of homelessness, hoping that a bylaw, the police or the courts will address these issues. All sorts of euphemisms are used to address homelessness – loitering, vagrancy, panhandling, soliciting, obstruction - instead of calling the problem what it is. And like all magical thinking, the problem remains, and it won’t go away until more housing is built and rents are affordable.”

Cathy Crowe, long-time street nurse, C.M.

“Alexandra Flynn and Joe Hermer thoroughly chronicle the rapid emergence and evolution of municipal bylaws across the country as a tool for the removal and criminalization of unhoused people amidst the blatant absence of housing justice. Our country’s reliance on bylaws that disrupt human rights is a dystopian response that all Canadians must resist.”

Elizabeth McIsaac, President, Maytree

“For everyone working to end homelessness, this book provides powerful insights into how bylaws shape exclusion and precarity for people who are unhoused. To create real systemic change, the reader is called to rethink the rules that drive policy and practice in cities. By pulling back the curtain on how bylaws undermine the dignity of individuals trying to survive in public spaces, Flynn and Hermer affirm the need for a response that is based in human rights. Housing justice demands a whole-of-government approach that meets the housing, health and social needs of those most deeply affected. For city leaders, this book is a timely and critical call to action.”

Carolyn Whitzman, author Home Truths (2024), School of Cities, University of Toronto

“Passionate, learned and engaging, Alexandra Flynn and Joe Hermer’s The Bylaw State details how homelessness has been transformed from a housing and social welfare lens into a ‘nuisance’ issue that denies the humanity and vulnerability of those most affected. Anyone interested in the sorry state of housing in Canada should read this book – and then act to ensure that municipal governments govern to support their more marginalized citizens.”