Local and Urban Politics

E10 - Author Meets Critics: Carey Doberstein's Network Governance and Homeless Policy-Making in Canada

Date: May 31 | Time: 10:30am to 12:00pm | Location: Classroom - CL 407 Room ID:15721

Joint Session / Séance conjointe : with CPSA/CAPPA section on Public Administration

Chair/Président/Présidente : Zachary Spicer (University of Toronto)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Carey Doberstein (University of British Columbia)

Author Meets Critics: Carey Doberstein's Network Governance and Homeless Policy-Making in Canada:

Evert Lindquist (University of Victoria)
Alison Smith (University of Toronto)
Carey Doberstein (University of British Columbia)

Abstract: Homelessness is not a historical accident. We know that it is the disastrous outcome of policy decisions made over time and at several levels of government. Yet conventional theories in political science and public administration fail to explain why some approaches have worked while others have failed. Drawing on network governance theory, extended participant observation, and more than sixty interviews with key policy figures, Carey Doberstein investigates how government and civil-society actors in three major Canadian cities have organized themselves to solve public problems. In Vancouver and Calgary, where governance networks include affordable-housing providers, mental health and addiction professionals, Aboriginal community members, representatives of drop-in centres, and others with lived experience, homelessness is on the decline. In Toronto, where government-level decision-making was closed to civil-society actors during the period of investigation, homelessness levels remained stagnant. Doberstein concludes that having a progressive city council is not enough. Civil-society organizations and actors must have genuine access to the channels of government power in order to work with policy makers to develop innovative and comprehensive solutions. He reveals how program and system coordination and policy innovation are more likely to be generated from within such network governance structures – not imposed from above.