'Damned If We Do, Damned If We Don’t': Examining the Municipal Problematization of Homelessness in Edmonton, Canada During COVID-19

This article engages with the discourse of municipal councilors and administrators in one Canadian city (Edmonton, Alberta) to trace how responses to homelessness were thought, rethought and, in turn, problematized during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis draws attention to the importance of local government as a site of articulation and critically examines its role as an arena for coordinating responses to homelessness during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, the article sheds light on the role of urban poverty management as mode governing unhoused individuals and the register of urban politics this engenders while also questioning post-political characterizations of neoliberal urban governmentality and the closure this entails.