Mission Critical

I should probably dislike Erin Dej’s A Complex Exile: Homelessness and Social Exclusion in Canada more than I do. After all, the book is a searing critique of modern homeless shelters and their sometimes paternalistic and exclusionary practices. I happen to run one of those shelters in Montreal, the Old Brewery Mission.

Like other shelters across the country, the Old Brewery has changed dramatically over the past twenty years. It is difficult today to find a shelter in Canada that is simply a witness to the misery and pain of its residents, as such places were in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Almost without exception, through casework and psychosocial intervention, we actively help the people we serve to turn the page and exit the brutal life of homelessness.

Earlier this year, Deirdre Freiheit...