Precarity, Property, and Homelessness in Toronto

This article analyzes the relationship that unhoused people have to property, both public and private, in Toronto. It argues that in disputes over the use of certain city spaces by unhoused people their interests are subordinate to those of the state and the property- owning public. To advance this argument, this article uses the example of the conflict between unhoused individuals occupying a hotel leased by Toronto at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the surrounding residents of an affluent neighbourhood. This article concludes by showing that the presence of unhoused people in city spaces not only reveals their precarity in relation to public property but also works to destabilize the dominant private property regime.