Henri Pallard

Photovoice and Homelessness in Subarctic and Urban Communities

A photovoice approach was used to enable homeless and precariously housed people to speak, through their photographs and narratives, to the community at large about their housing conditions and the effects on their health. Participant photographers in three communities - one of European origin and two First Nations in northern Ontario, Canada - were provided with cameras and invited to take photographs of their living circumstances. Each photograph tells its own story about couch surfing, sleeping rough, overcrowding, and substandard or inadequate housing. The comparison of remote Indigenous and urban communities makes this study unique. Not withstanding their cultural, linguistic and geographic differences, common themes, evident in their photographs and narratives, allowed for a comparison of understandings regarding the negative impacts of housing on their physical and mental health. The findings from this arts-based project are similar to results of medical studies on the effects of poverty and housing on health. An art-based approach using the photovoice method can be a powerful tool to engage the homeless community in sensitising both health professionals working with this population and the larger community to such issues, and it can enhance the possibilities for social transformation based on social justice. The arts become a tool in the struggle for social justice by revealing hidden aspects of life at the margins and the living conditions of poor and homeless people. A photo exhibit will tour galleries in the three communities.