Perceptions and Lived Experiences of Women Experiencing Homelessness in Montréal's Public Spaces
A partnership-based research exploring how women experiencing homelessness perceive and navigate public spaces in Montréal, toward more inclusive and hospitable urban design
From the 1980s, the concern of homelessness was seen as a “social crisis” in most western cities. Since the 1990s, the diversity of faces and subgroups has translated into an urgent need to reflect on their aspirations in the urban and community environment. The momentum of actions in the space and media policy spheres of recent years is radical and does not favor the presence of People experiencing Homelessness (PEHs) in public spaces. Invisibilization and isolation strategies characterize the profile and practices of women experiencing homelessness (WEHs). Public spaces are scenes that reflect the social relationships associated with the urbanization of a city and the power relations associated with them. Safety and risk management has become a central focus in space design.
This study proposes to make women actors in the design of inclusive and hospitable public spaces. Semi-structured interviews mediated by creation give us the opportunity to highlight factors that favor or hinder the use of public spaces for women in situations of homelessness. Semi-structured interviews highlight the spaces that the participants use daily and their relationship with them. The research focuses on the case study of La Place des Montréalaises, where participants are led to transform space from paper projections. The expected benefits are to give visibility to the experience of women experiencing homelessness — a perspective that designers of public spaces in Montréal rarely consider — and to propose new perspectives around their presence in public spaces, encouraging design and planning actors to work with groups in processes of marginalization.
Keywords: homelessness; women; partnership research; public spaces; hostile design; conception; hospitality.
