What is the Heegsma Case About?
In Canada, courts are rarely asked to rule directly on homelessness. When they are, the outcomes can shape how governments respond to housing insecurity and homelessness for years to come.
The Heegsma case is one of those moments—it was brought forward by 14 encampment residents, including Indigenous Peoples, Black residents, women, and a transgender woman. They argued that Hamilton by-laws designed to evict them from their encampment violated their Charter rights and put their lives and safety at risk because there were no adequate alternatives—shelters were often full or inaccessible due to rules related to pets, substance use, gender identity, or mobility.
Unfortunately, the judge hearing the case, Justice Ramsay, ruled that Hamilton’s by-laws did not violate the right to life or the right to be free from discrimination under the Charter. He further ruled that it is homelessness itself, not the encampments by-law, that put the residents’ life, health, and security at risk, and that courts should leave it up to municipalities to decide how to respond to homelessness. He also said that the by-law did not discriminate against women, Indigenous people or persons with disabilities, and that discrimination against people experiencing homelessness does not violate the Charter.
Appealing Justice Ramsey’s Ruling
After this ruling was passed and their encampment demolished, the residents decided to appeal this decision to the Ontario Court of Appeal to bring forward the question: Does the Charter protect people who cannot afford homes, and cannot access shelters, against eviction from tents on public property which shield against the elements and secure a modicum of privacy?
Justice Ramsay’s decision, however, raised an ever bigger, more fundamental question, which NRHN believes must also be asked in these cases:
What does the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms require governments to do when people’s lives and safety are harmed by homelessness?
Why This Case Matters for the Right to Housing
This is the first homelessness-related Charter case to reach the Ontario Court of Appeal since the Tanudjaja case more than a decade ago—this alone makes this case significant for the right to housing movement.
The Court of Appeal will determine whether municipalities can ban people from staying in encampments during the day and whether forced evictions are lawful when no adequate, accessible shelter spaces are available.
Beyond those questions, the lower-court decision made by Justice Ramsay raised troubling findings about homelessness itself, including that:
- the Charter offers no protection if it is homelessness—rather than encampment by-laws—that violates life and security of the person;
- courts should not interfere with municipal approaches to homelessness; and
- discrimination against homeless people is permitted under the Charter.
If this reasoning is allowed to stand, it would severely limit the ability to use constitutional and human rights law to protect encampment residents and others experiencing homelessness. It would also weaken efforts to hold governments accountable for failing to address homelessness as a violation of fundamental human rights.
This is why NRHN sought to intervene.
Why NRHN Sought to Intervene
NRHN applied for intervenor status because Heegsma raises questions about how the courts can hold our governments accountable for upholding the right to housing that extend far beyond the City of Hamilton.
As an intervenor, NRHN would not have represented the individuals bringing on the case in Hamilton. Instead, we sought to assist the Court by providing the broader human rights and legal context: how homelessness engages Charter rights, how international human rights standards should inform the analysis, and what this decision will mean for efforts to end homelessness and provide adequate housing for people nationwide.
What NRHN Would Have Argued if our Intervention was Accepted
NRHN, together with the Charter Committee on Poverty Issues (CCPI), and represented by the leading scholar and lawyer in Canada on the Charter rights of people living in poverty and homelessness, Martha Jackman, sought to advance four core arguments.
1. Governments have a duty to protect life and safety — not just avoid harm
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not only require governments to refrain from evicting people from encampments so as to “do no harm.” When governments—at any level—know that people’s lives are at serious risk, they have positive obligations under the Charter to act.
In this case, governments themselves submitted extensive evidence showing that homelessness is associated with:
- Early death
- Exposure to violence
- Serious physical and mental health harms
In our application to intervene, our team argued that failing to adopt positive measures to address homelessness by providing housing and supports puts lives at risk and violates the right to life and security of the person under the Charter.
In fact, the City of Hamilton itself had committed to adopting positive measures to address homelessness under their “Plan to End Chronic Homelessness” co-designed with persons experiencing homelessness.
2. Homelessness should be recognized as a prohibited ground of discrimination
People experiencing homelessness are routinely subjected to:
- Stigma and harassment
- Targeted by-laws and policing
- Systemic exclusion from services and public space
Homelessness is deeply tied to dignity and identity, and often impossible to escape without support. It also intersects with race, gender, disability, and Indigeneity.
The Charter protects people against discrimination—and both international and Canadian human rights bodies have increasingly recognized the realities of homelessness as discrimination. Our team argued that Charter equality protections should reflect that lived reality.
3. Courts now have clear standards to assess government action
In a previous case that went to the Ontario Court of Appeal, the case of Jennifer Tanudjaja, the Court said that although the Charter may impose obligations to address homelessness and prevent discrimination on this ground, the Court did not have clear legal standards to assess whether governments were adequately responding to homelessness. That landscape has since changed.
Since the Tanudjaja decision:
- Canada has passed the National Housing Strategy Act recognizing housing as a fundamental human right, and;
- Governments, including municipalities across the country, have publicly committed to rights-based and housing-first approaches (e.g., the City of Toronto)
These commitments provide concrete benchmarks courts can use to assess whether governments are meeting their obligations to address homelessness as a violation of the rights to life, security and equality, and adopt measures necessary to reduce and end homelessness.
The courts do not need to design housing policy themselves, they just need to hold governments accountable to legal standards that they have committed to under both international law and under Canadian law.
4. Courts can order meaningful, respectful remedies
Our team was not asking courts to run housing systems or dictate policy details.
However, courts can:
- Declare when rights are being violated;
- Require governments to develop and implement rights-based plans;
- Ensure those plans are time-bound, accountable, and consistent with human rights law.
In other contexts, courts have required governments to engage directly with rights-holders and report back on how they will remedy rights violations (see Disability Rights Coalition v. Nova Scotia). Similar approaches are possible in housing cases.
What Outcome Were We Hoping For?
NRHN and the rest of our team sought a ruling that would clarify that:
- Governments have positive obligations to respond when homelessness puts lives and safety at risk; and
- Homelessness should be recognized as a form of discrimination.
For people living in encampments, this would mean:
- Stronger protections against forced displacement; and entitlements to adequate housing with supports;
- Recognition that encampments exist because governments have failed to adequately address the need for housing and supports; and
- Pressure on governments to move away from punitive measures and toward real housing solutions.
For the broader housing system, it would help establish that:
- The right to housing is inseparable from the rights to life and equality under the Charter;
- Governments can be held accountable for failing to address homelessness as a violation of Charter and human rights; and
- Courts have a legitimate role in ensuring that government responses to homelessness comply with the Charter including by requiring appropriate measures to reduce and eliminate homelessness.
Why this Work Matters — Even When Interventions Aren’t Granted
We are hoping that our intervention motion in the Heegsma case, along with the draft factum that we submitted, will achieve a lot of what we set out to do—to ensure that the Court of Appeal does not uphold Justice Ramsey’s decision regarding obligations to address homelessness and to prevent discrimination on this ground. Justice Favreau has ruled that these issues are not being addressed in the appeal.
In the meantime, NRHN has been granted leave to intervene in a similar case in Waterloo, where the issues of positive obligations to address homelessness and homelessness as a prohibited ground of discrimination have been raised by the lawyers for the encampment residents. The judge in that case is aware that the Court of Appeal is not dealing with the issues we sought to raise in the Heegsma case and is willing to consider them in the Waterloo case, in fact, he quoted from an article by Martha Jackman in a preliminary decision.
Strategic litigation is slow and careful work. But even when courts decline to hear intervenors, this work builds the legal record and shifts how homelessness is framed in law. This critical work also lays groundwork for future cases and policy reform when it comes to protecting the rights of people experiencing homelessness.
Because this is an ongoing case (as of February 2026), we here at NRHN look forward to hearing the oral submissions presented by organizations like the Canadian Centre for Housing Rights, who were granted leave to intervene in Heegsma. And in a few months, NRHN (along with CCPI) will be making similar legal arguments in an intervention in a similar case, Waterloo v. Persons to be Named.
To stay up to date on NRHN’s strategic litigation efforts, and all other aspects of our work (and the work of partners across the housing justice sector), you can subscribe to our newsletter!
Frequently Asked Questions
Why Was NRHN Denied Leave to Intervene?
NRHN knew that it was going to be difficult to get the court to agree to hear our arguments in this case because we were making arguments that went beyond what had been raised in the appeal by the encampment residents’ lawyers. Our colleagues representing the encampment residents were making the important argument for a right to stay in the encampments, but we instead challenged Justice Ramsay’s finding that while homelessness itself violates rights, there is nothing for the courts to do about it as it is not covered under the Charter.
At a minimum we wanted to ensure that the Court of Appeal knows that those findings by Justice Ramsay and similar findings by other courts are not based on decisions from the Supreme Court of Canada. The Court of Appeal for Ontario had left the question of positive obligations to address homelessness unanswered in the Tanudjaja case, and we wanted to make sure that they did not reverse that by agreeing with Justice Ramsay in this case.
Justice Favreau of the Ontario Court of Appeal did not grant us leave to make the arguments we proposed because “the appellants have not framed their challenge to the respondent’s by-law as a claim based on a breach of positive obligations under s. 7 of the Charter or as a claim that homelessness should be recognized as an analogous ground under s. 15.”
What were the original arguments by the residents' lawyers?
In Heegsma v. Hamilton (City), fourteen individuals who are or have been unhoused in Hamilton will argue that it is unconstitutional for the City to prohibit tents on public property.
The group argues that the encampment bans and evictions violate their rights under sections 7 and 15 of the Charter. Unable to access permanent housing or shelter beds, they have faced violence including sexual assault; increased health risks; and a lack of privacy. The trial judge dismissed their claim
When is the appeal date?
the Court of Appeal for Ontario will hear their appeal on February 10 and 11, 2026.