In Canada, the conversation around homelessness is frequently clouded by a persistent and damaging narrative; the idea that people remain unhoused because they simply refuse help. This belief, commonly framed as “service resistance”, assumes that there are networks of support readily available and that individuals are making a conscious, lifestyle-based choice to sleep in parks or subways. While this perspective often assumes that existing supports meet the diverse needs of the population, evidence suggests that  ‘disengagement’is less about a lack of motivation, and more about the functional barriers that individuals experiencing homelessness experience. In many cases, what appears to be refusal of help is actually a response to a lack of compatible or accessible options (Seelos & Mair, 2021).

Deconstructing the “Refusal”

Organizations like Invisible people and the Canadian Observatory of Homelessness push back strongly against this myth. They argue that people experiencing homelessness are rarely resistant to help itself, and rather, they are resistant to services that are unsafe, dehumanizing or fundamentally ineffective. 

For many the offer of help comes with conditions that are impossible to meet or environments that are traumatizing. In major Canadian hubs, shelters are often overcrowded, plagued by bedbugs, or have a large risk of violence and theft. For a person struggling with PTSD or severe anxiety, a crowded shelter is not a resource, it’s a threat. When an individual has to choose between mental stability or a safe place to rest, they are not refusing help, they are making a decision for their own safety and mental well-being (Invisible People, 2021).

The “System-Induced” Disengagement 

At a structural level, homelessness reflects systemic failure, and not the failure of an individual. Researchers describe how fragmented, inflexible service systems make disengagement predictable. In cities like Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, shelters frequently operate at 99% capacity. When a person is told night after night that there is “no room at the shelter”, they eventually stop asking. This is not resistance, it is the natural result of being repeatedly rejected by a system that claims to be there for you. (Steelos & Mair, 2021). 

Why the Myth Persists 

If the data provides that service resistance is a myth, why does it remain so popular in Canadian discourse? 

If homelessness is a choice, then the government is not failing on its duty to provide the human right to housing. It shifts the blame away from the housing market and policy failures onto the person in the sleeping bag. 

To end homelessness, we must move past the language or “resistance” and start speaking the language of “accessability”. Until the supports offered are dignified, safe, and lead to permanent housing, the choice to opt out of the system remains a survival strategy, not a character flaw. 

References

Invisible People. (2021). The myth that homeless people are service-resistant.
https://invisiblepeople.tv/the-myth-that-homeless-people-are-service-resistant/

Seelos, C., & Mair, J. (2021). Homelessness: A system perspective. Stanford PACS Center.
https://pacscenter.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Homelessness_A-System-Perspective_Seelos_GIIL_002_2021.pdf

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