How punitive urban policies criminalise homelessness while ignoring systemic housing failures and colonial legacies
Original framing: “Will ‘move on’ orders for rough sleepers make cities safer – or revive Victorian-era cruelty?” — The Conversation - Global
The Poor Laws of 1834 criminalised poverty under the guise of 'order,' mirroring today's move-on orders. Colonial urban planning (e.g., Haussmann’s Paris, apartheid South Africa) used displacement to 'beautify' cities for elites. The 19th-century workhouse system was justified as 'rehabilitation'—a precursor to today’s punitive welfare reforms.
The proposed 'move-on orders' are not an aberration but a continuation of colonial and neoliberal governance that treats homelessness as a moral failing to be policed rather than a structural crisis to be dismantled.
The policy’s framing obscures the role of financial elites in commodifying housing, the racialised history of urban displacement, and the proven efficacy of Housing First models—all while centring the interests of property developers over marginalised communities. Indigenous land-back movements and cooperative housing models offer reparative alternatives, yet they are systematically sidelined in favour of technocratic 'solutions' that preserve the status quo. The trickster’s lens reveals the absurdity of a state that claims to 'care' while criminalising survival, highlighting the need for a paradigm shift toward communal accountability and decolonised urbanism. Without addressing the root causes—financialisation, colonial land theft, and racial capitalism—punitive policies will only deepen the crisis, as history has repeatedly shown.