Social Housing with Community Support in Québec: A Sociopolitical Perspective

Abstract

The 2022 adoption of a new policy framework on community support in social housing in Québec speaks to a convergence of a multitude of community, government, and municipal actors around this practice. This qualitative study delves into the process by which this approach was institutionalized to demonstrate how community support became a central norm of the social housing field in the province. Drawing from literature on the welfare mix, we situate this phenomenon in the broader context of the transformation of the welfare state, in which nonprofit organizations played an increasing role in providing social housing to vulnerable populations (e.g., people at risk of homelessness). This article demonstrates how power dynamics and negotiations between the state and the third sector were, in this case, a major source of institutional change over time.

Keywords

• social housing, community support, institutionalization, welfare mix