Silent Struggles

How Policy Reinforces Homelessness and Political Exclusion

Silent Struggles exposes how existing policies shape – and often limit –the political participation of individuals experiencing homelessness, revealing both the barriers they face and the agency they exercise in seeking change.

Silent Struggles delves into the complex ways individuals experiencing homelessness shape – and are often excluded from – policy-making processes. Through a compelling comparative study of Melbourne and Toronto, this book uncovers both the failures of existing policies and the overlooked political agency of a marginalized population. Drawing on over one hundred in-depth interviews, researcher Anna Kopec adopts a bottom-up perspective to reveal how people experiencing homelessness actively participate in political life, and how their efforts to influence policy are frequently obstructed by the very systems they seek to reform.
Rich in qualitative insights, Silent Struggles demonstrates that the barriers to policy influence are not accidental but are embedded within the structures of exclusion perpetuated by current policies. The book not only advances existing scholarship by highlighting the critical role of qualitative data in understanding and driving policy change but also offers a candid reflection on the researcher’s own journey. Ultimately, it calls for expanded research and deeper engagement with the lived experiences of those at the margins, challenging readers to rethink whose voices are heard in the creation of social policy.

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