Cumulative and Cascading Impacts of Invisibility: An Intersectional Approach to Understanding the Housing Experiences of Canadians With Disabilities During COVID-19

Abstract

Purpose

In this chapter, we examine the unique and heightened negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic through tracing how the preexisting social conditions of exclusion and precarity in which many disabled people live, effected access to safe, affordable, and accessible housing in Canada. We then illustrate the reverberating impacts housing choices have on how people with disabilities lived, lived well, and how they faced barriers to living well during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods/Approach

Using an intersectional livelihoods approach, we analyzed semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 32 diverse people with disabilities, 12 key informant semi-structured interviews, as well as academic and community literature and a social media scan of key disability advocacy organizations in Canada.

Findings

Pandemic-related policies in Canada often excluded people with disabilities, either overlooking barriers to access and safety, which exacerbated the already precarious livelihoods of people with disabilities or over-emphasized the usefulness of social adaptions such as work from home. These exclusions had more profound consequences for people with disabilities from historically marginalized groups, as they often faced increased barriers to livelihoods pre-pandemic, and disability- or care-specific policies failed to consider intersectional experiences of discrimination. People with disabilities formed communities of care to meet their needs and those of their loved ones.

Implications/Values

To achieve a responsive policy response that addresses the cascading impacts of risk and care, it is necessary for governments to engage, early and often, with people with disabilities, disability leaders and organizations in emergency planning and beyond.

Citation

Grand'Maison, V., Reinders, K., Pin, L., Abbas, J. and Stienstra, D. (2023), "Cumulative and Cascading Impacts of Invisibility: An Intersectional Approach to Understanding the Housing Experiences of Canadians With Disabilities During COVID-19", Carey, A.C., Green, S.E. and Mauldin, L. (Ed.) Disability in the Time of Pandemic (Research in Social Science and Disability, Vol. 13), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 31-48. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-354720230000013003