Right to housing
The right to housing is the economic, social and cultural right to adequate housing and shelter. It is recognized in some national constitutions and in a number of international human rights instruments, including the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 25, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted by UN 1966, came into force 1976, ratified by most nations but not by the USA).
Twitter search query link: #right2housing OR #righttohousing (both of these hashtags are commonly used) - click to see one view of current public discussion of these concepts.
(1) Categorization and levels of the right to housing
Socio-economic rights as 'poor cousins' of civil/political rights?
from: Hohmann, Jessie. The Right to Housing: Laws, Concepts, Possibilities. (2013), "Introduction":
"By virtue of its placement in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the right to housing traditionally falls within the category known as social, economic and cultural rights. This designation seems firmly entrenched, despite the official position adopted by the United Nations and endorsed by most human rights practitioners, activists and academics that all human rights are indivisible, interdependent and interrelated. Moreover, indivisibility often remains in the realm of rhetoric, rather than appearing as a commitment to equal realisation, enforcement or attention for all human rights. The suggestion that housing is a right has been met with opposition, normally based on a perception that housing cannot fulfill the characteristics necessary for designation as a right. However, even when the indivisibility and interdependence of rights is taken seriously, important questions arise about whether diverse rights rest on different moral, legal and normative bases. If all rights are indivisible and interdependent, do economic, social and cultural rights continue to exist as a separate category of right, and if so, what is the signi cance of this categorisation or, if necessary, their further sub- categorisation as economic, social or cultural right?"
"the distinction between economic, social and cultural rights and other categories of rights remains highly relevant in a legal sense, due to differing obligations imposed on states through the ICESCR, for example, as opposed to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), or through the Revised European Social Charter (RESC) as contrasted with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Such differing legal obligations illustrate Henry Shue’s argument that it is not the normative or moral basis of various rights that differ, but in fact the correlative duties to fulfill those rights."
from Hohmann (2019):
"The Right to Housing in International Law: Scope, Content, and Obligations":
"Socio-economic rights, including the right to housing, are often perceived to be the poor cousins of the rights world. States and commentators sometimes argue they are merely moral exhortations, and their content is perceived to be vaguer than so-called civil and political rights, and thus obligations harder to define or enforce (Eide and Rosas, 2001 p. 3-7; Bates, 2007 p. 263-65). However, in the last 20 years, the content and scope of the right to housing in international law has been given a significant degree of specificity. This has occurred through the work of UN expert bodies, activists, advocates and scholars."
Article 2(1) of ICESCR, specifies state obligations:
"Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes to take steps, individually and through international assistance and co-operation, especially economic and technical, to the maximum of its available resources, with a view to achieving progressively the full realization of the rights recognized in the present Covenant by all appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of legislative measures."
'Minimum core' socio-economic rights
In 1991, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (UNCESCR), in General Comment No.3, introduced the principle of the “minimum core”, to give greater weight to the ICESCR by focusing on the “minimum essential levels”.
-Maxwell (2019).
"The incorporation of the ICESCR into the domestic law of the UK was considered after the passing of the Human Rights Act 1998. This was in part inspired by a fear that the ECHR was an “outmoded” treaty and as such protected, at best, a very basic minimum standard of living. The inclusion of socio-economic rights was, however, dismissed as it was felt that the principles were non-justiciable.
"The incorporation of Article 11 of the ICESCR into the domestic law would raise several, perhaps insurmountable challenges. The first concern is what guidance would the courts have to define the right to housing and key terms such as “adequacy”. While the ICESCR and the Committee have attempted to offer some guidance, the definition remains open-textured. As Jessie Hohmann concludes:
“The failure of courts and monitoring bodies to provide a definition of the right thus impacts directly on those hoping to lay claim to the right in order to struggle against homelessness, inadequate housing, forced resettlement, or other material deprivation and marginalisation. If the right cannot be laid claim to it is a hollow promise and any attempt to invoke it as an instrument in a project of advocacy is fraught with uncertainty”.
Merely legislating in a manner that purports to embody socio-economic rights does not necessarily result in their greater realisation.[...].
"The significance of establishing a minimum core is that once it can be established that the minimum core is not adequately protected, the burden shifts to the state rather than the individual. Once claimants are able to prove that their minimum core is not protected, it will be for the state rather than the applicant to prove that it has taken the required “reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realisation”. In reversing the onus onto the state, the minimum core can help to ensure “practical justiciability,” turning a “paper right” of access to court into a practical reality."
"rationalising a minimum core, finding the vast financial resources required and then trying to traverse the complex problem of political will, means that implementation of a human right to adequate housing in the UK remains, for now, dishearteningly out of reach."
-- Maxwell (2019.
"States have immediate obligations to ensure that every individual enjoys each element of the right to the level of a ‘minimum core’. For instance, street homelessness clearly violates the minimum core of the right, as do forced evictions (UNCESCR, 1997; UNCESCR, 1991); though in many respects the minimum core remains contested as a concept and difficult to apply in practice (Young, 2008)." -[Hohmann 2019].
Young, Katharine G. (2008). "The Minimum Core of Economic and Social Rights: A Concept in Search of Content." The Yale Journal of International Law, 33:113-175.
"The concept of the 'minimum core' seeks to establish a minimum legal content for the notoriously indeterminate claims of economic and social rights. By recognizing the “minimum essential levels” of the rights to food, health, housing, and education, it is a concept trimmed, honed, and shorn of deontological excess. It reflects a “minimalist” rights strategy, which implies that maximum gains are made by minimizing goals. It also trades rights inflation for rights-ambition, channeling the attention of advocates towards the severest cases of material deprivation and treating these as violations by states towards their own citizens or even to those outside their territorial reach. With the minimum core concept as its guide, economic and social rights are supposed to enter the hard work of hard law." [italics emphases added. - tm for housingwiki].
"Yet rights-ambition is a difficult stance, and even minimalist ambitions can be misplaced. Critics of the concept have suggested that paring down such rights to an essential core threatens the broader goals of economic and social rights, or pretends a determinacy that does not exist. A long-standing criticism faults the minimum core for directing our attention only to the performance of developing states, leaving the legal discourse of economic and social rights beyond the reach of those facing material deprivation in the middle or high income countries."
Limuru Declaration on adequate housing (1987)
"In 1987, representatives from forty countries met in Limuru, Kenya, in order to address poverty and homelessness. The conference developed a definition of adequate housing that became known as the Limuru Declaration (as cited in Turner 1988, 187):
Adequate, affordable shelter with basic services is a fundamental right of all people. Governments should respect the right of all people to shelter, free from the fear of forced eviction or removal, or the threat of their home being demolished. . . . Adequate shelter includes not only protection from the elements, but also sources of potable water in or close to the house, provision for the removal of house- hold and human liquid and solid wastes, site drainage, emergency life-saving services, and easy access to health care. In urban centers, a house site within easy reach of social and economic opportunities is also an integral part of an adequate shelter.
Another interesting challenge in the effort to define homelessness is raised by this question: When is “no access to a conventional dwelling” not homelessness? The answer appears to be: When movement from place to place is a part of the culture of the group." --Glasser, Irene, and Rae Bridgman. (2004). "Homelessness, international perspectives on." in Levinson, David, ed. (2004). Encyclopedia of Homelessness.
Right to Shelter vs Right to Housing
in the United States, programs to guarantee a "Right to Shelter" for houseless residents -- provision of some level of dwelling, different than that normally required for legal 'housing' -- have been enacted in Washington D.C. (later repealed), the state of Massachusetts, and the City of New York.
See section "Right to Shelter" below.
(2) Provisions of UN declarations / treaties
Key provisions concerning housing were set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the UN and signed by the United States in 1948. This is considered a declaration, to inform subsequent binding treaties, rather than being binding in itself.
UDHR's provisions on housing were generally expressed in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) treaty adopted by the UN in 1966 which came in force 1976, and was signed but not ratified by the US.
Further UN treaties bear upon US housing rights, according to [Tars 2018]:
The U.S. ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1992, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1994. Both recognize the right to be free from discrimination, including in housing, on the basis of race, gender, disability, and other status. The U.S. also ratified the Convention Against Torture in 1994, protecting individuals from torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, including the criminalization of homelessness.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)
Adapted from Naznin [2018]: "Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) recognises the right to housing as part of the right to an adequate standard of living. It states that:
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.{{Cquote|Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."
The right to housing constitutes an integral component of human dignity vis-à-vis an adequate standard of life and living. It is crucial to the realization of other rights including the right to life, the right to privacy, the right to health and the right to development. Hence, the right to housing is recognized as a fundamental human right.
Components of the Right to Housing
Housing today means more than a roof over one’s head. Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR, treaty adopted by the UN in 1966 which came in force 1976; signed but not ratified by the US) contemplates housing as adequate housing that requires living a standard life with dignity, peace and security and enables a person to utilize and expand his capabilities. In order to meet this standard, as the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in General Comment No. 4 postulates, the contents of adequacy must include the presence of legal security of tenure, availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure, affordability, habitability, accessibility, location and cultural adequacy. Following discussion provides a brief analysis of these components:
- Legal security of tenure: Irrespective of the nature of tenure, all persons are entitled to a secure tenure to ensure legal protection from forced evictions, harassment or other threats.
- Availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure: An adequate housing facility must ensure health, security, comfort and nutrition. Hence,everyone should have sustainable access to natural and common resources, pure drinking water, energy for cooking, heating and lighting, sanitation, washing facilities, storage space, refuse disposal, site drainage and emergency services.
- Affordability: Personal or household costs associated with housing should not exceed the income level and threaten or compromise the enjoyment of other basic needs.
- Habitability: Adequate housing must provide the inhabitants with sufficient space and protect them from adverse weather conditions as well as other threats to health, structural hazards and disease vectors.
- Accessibility: Adequacy implies accessibility. Hence laws and policies on housing should address the special needs of vulnerable and marginalized groups such as children, elderly people, physically disabled, victims of natural disasters.
- Location: Adequate housing must ensure access to employment opportunities, medical services, schools, childcare centres and other social facilities. Besides, households should situate within a reasonable distance from polluted zones to avoid any risk of health hazards.
- Cultural adequacy: The construction materials, design and construction of households should have a proper balance with the cultural identity and lifestyle of the residents.
UN Convention Against Torture
The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (commonly known as the United Nations Convention against Torture (UNCAT), was adopted by the UN in 1984 came into force in 1987, and was ratified by the United States in 1994.
Tars (2018) argues that UNCAT protects individuals "the criminalization of homelessness." However, upon ratification, the U.S. Senate expressed a series of formal reservations, including:
"(1) That the United States considers itself bound by the obligation under article 16 to prevent `cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment', only insofar as the term `cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment' means the cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States." [United Nations 1984]/
So from a U.S. legal point of view, it seems that UNCAT's bearing upon homelessness is subsumed by US jurisprudence on the 5th, 8th, & 14th Amendments. That concerning the 8th Amendment -- "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted" -- has been the most prominent: for example, being the primary substantive constitutional matter considered in the Martin v Boise rulings (see below).
(3) Policies outside the US
Canada - National Housing Strategy Act, 2019
"On June 21, the Governor General signed into law Bill C-97, which contained the “National Housing Strategy Act”, and the federal right to housing legislation. This legislation is historic – it not only marks the first time that the Government of Canada has legally recognized an explicit right to housing, but it sets Canada apart as one of only a small handful of countries in the world with such legislation in place." [Morrison 2019].
From start of legislation:
“It is declared to be the housing policy of the Government of Canada to recognize that the right to adequate housing is a fundamental human right affirmed in international law; and to recognize that housing is essential to the inherent dignity and well-being of the person and to building sustainable and inclusive communities.”
Morrison [2019] notes:
What the Legislation Won’t Do
- It will not create an enforceable individual right to access housing:
- It does not apply to provincial, territorial, Indigenous, or municipal jurisdiction: The National Housing Strategy Act is a federal statute, and therefore has no jurisdiction over other orders of government.
- It is not constitutionally protected
(4) In US policy & advocacy
FDR's 1944 State of the Union address
from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's1944 State of the Union address to Congress:
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. 'Necessitous men are not free men. . . . ' These economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis ofsecurity and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed. Among these are: the right to a useful and remunerative job ...the right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation . . . the right to adequate medical care...the right to a good education [and] along with several other enumerated rights] the right of every family to a decent home. All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being."
Preamble to the 1949 Housing Act
"Congress in its preamble to the 1949 Housing Act promulgated the National Housing Goal of “the implementation as soon as feasible of a decent home and a suitable
living environment for every American family.' That goal wasreiterated in the 1968 Housing Act and, in slightly different versions, in the 1974 and 1990 Housing Acts." [Hartman 1998].
1968 Housing and Urban Development Act
"The 1968 Housing Act took the brave step of setting forth a 10-year numerical target: 26 million units, 6 million of which were to be for low- and moderate-income households, and year-by-year progress reports were mandated. But it failed by a considerable margin, and never again was Congress foolish enough to risk such embarrassment." [Hartman 1998].
"There remains no entitlement to any of the direct government housing programs: public housing,14 Section 8, Section 202 and so on. Something approaching a Right to Housing exists in other government programs, albeit hidden and largely unexplored in the literature. The temporary housing assistance offered under the disaster aid programs of the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) is in effect an entitlement, although not that much money is involved and much of it is reimbursed by insurance proceeds. Federal aid for foster care—in effect a houser of last resort for children from troubled families—may also be legitimately described as an entitlement; almost 80 percent of the federal government’s $4.7 billion child welfare expenditures go to foster care (Russakoff 1998). Finally, and perhaps most important, the significant portion of the Medicaid (an entitlement) expenditure set aside fornursing home care constitutes a quasi-Right to Housing based on age. (Redfoot 1993)." [Hartman 1998].
[from Bratt & Hartmann 2006:]
"In 1989, the Washington, DC-based Institute for Policy Studies assembled a Working Group on Housing (including Chester Hartman and Michael Stone, Emily Achtenberg, Peter Dreier, Peter Marcuse Florence Roisman) that crafted a detailed housing program, put forward in The Right to Housing: A Blueprint for Housing the Nation.
"That document provided an analysis of the failures of the private market and of government programs similar to what is put forward in this book. And it included a detailed program for preserving affordable rental housing; promoting affordable homeownership; protecting the stock of government-assisted housing; and producing/financing new affordable housing. First-year program costs—estimated for each element of the program,with administrative costs added—at that time ranged from $29 billion to $88 billion, depending on how rapidly and fully specific program elements were introduced; by way of comparison, at the same time, the highly regressive income tax system for housing provided at least $54 billion in tax breaks for high-income households. The thrust of the various elements was to move substantial portions of the existing housing stock, as well as new additions, into the nonprofit sector(public as well as private)—“decommodifying housing” was the catchword. Annual costswould steadily decrease as this fundamental shift in the nation’s housing stock progressed.
"Congressman Ron Dellums of California introduced the program in the 101st Congress as H.R. 1122 (A Bill to Provide an Affordable, Secure and Decent Home and Suitable Living Environment for Every American Family). Needless to say, it did not pass. At the end of a hearing on the Bill, Congressman Henry Gonzalez of Texas, then Chair of the Banking, Finance & Urban Affairs Committee and Chair of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Development,remarked, “What your group haspresentedisinevitably going tohappen. . . . It is imaginative, it is seminal, it is creative.” We agree and hope this book will hasten that day."
Maryland's Social Housing Act of 2019
Carter, Dennis. "Here’s What a ‘Housing as a Human Right’ Bill Looks Like." Rewire News, Feb 20, 2019, 5:23pm.
About Maryland's Social Housing Act of 2019, created by state delegate Vaughn Stewart (D-Montgomery), that would create a social housing program to ensure everyone in the state of 6 million people has access to housing. It would create a $2.5 billion trust fund from which the state could create and maintain housing units. The legislation is first of its kind, Stewart said.
“Call it the ‘public option for housing,'” he said.
A social housing system, commonplace throughout Europe, would differ from traditional public housing programs in the United States because it would be open to everyone, varying in price according to a person’s income."
2019 California 'Right to Housing' debate
In February 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom created a Statewide Commission on Homelessness & Supportive Housing, and named as its chairperson Darrell Steinberg, Mayor of Sacramento. On July 17th, Steinberg wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times: "Op-Ed: Building more permanent housing alone won’t solve homelessness in California," [Steinberg 2019a] stating:
I still believe strongly in the concept of housing first, but I’ve also come to see that focusing primarily on permanent housing is insufficient. We simply don’t have the housing stock necessary to address our current crisis, and building it will take too long and cost too much. We need an infusion of short-term shelter and housing options to serve as a bridge for those currently living on our streets.
Various housing groups reacted negatively, including National Low-Income Housing Coalition, Housing California, and Destination: Home. In a response to the criticisms, Steinberg published on August 25 a followup, "California should make clear there is a right to housing, not simply shelter" [Steinberg 2019b].
There are two ways to tackle California’s greatest public safety, public health and humanitarian crisis: homelessness. One way is to marshal resources, build programs, replicate successes, and say, with some justification, that we have helped a lot of people, even if the overall situation isn’t much better. The other way is to define a clear policy, a compelling objective, and the rights and obligations necessary to achieve that objective. Our state’s objective should be clear: Housing is a human right, and having a roof over your head should be a legal right. [...] A right to housing, a right to a roof over one’s head, is a better policy than a limited right to shelter.
However, Steinberg clarifies that by 'housing', he means something different than 'permanent' housing:
The word shelter implies to many people an unsafe, crowded living space where people linger with little or no help. That’s an inadequate term for the service-rich housing hubs we are describing. San Francisco calls them Navigation Centers. In Los Angeles, it’s Bridge Housing. In Sacramento, we’re planning to call them Rehousing Shelters. Their sole goal is to help people stabilize their lives and transition to permanent housing.
A few days later, Steinberg tweeted:
{{#widget:Tweet |id=1165646989993754625 |conversation=none }}
(5) Right to Shelter
in the United States, programs to guarantee a "Right to Shelter" for houseless residents -- provision of some level of dwelling, different than that normally required for legal 'housing' -- have been enacted in Washington D.C. (later repealed), the state of Massachusetts, and the City of New York.
New York City
"In 1981, Callahan v. Carey was settled by consent decree (“Callahan Consent Decree”)106 and New York State and New York City agreed to provide shelter and board to all homeless men. In 1983, Eldredge v. Koch affirmed that the Callahan Consent Decree applied to homeless women as well. In 1983 the Legal Aid Society filed suit against the then Mayor of New York Edward Koch in McCain v. Koch seeking, among other relief, a right to emergency housing as well as minimum standards of habitability in emergency housing. In a landmark appellate decision regarding injunctive relief, the Appellate Court held that the trial court had the power to require government officials to abide by standards of minimum habitability set by the trial court.109 This lawsuit was litigated for over twenty years and was finally settled in 2008 after litigation and various similar suits resulted in an enforceable right to shelter for homeless families with children and numerous other standards changing the regulations and requirements of the shelter system in New York." [New York City Bar Association 2017].
Washington D.C.
[Wells 2019].
"In November 1984, as voters across the USA went to the polls to re-elect neoconservative President Ronald Reagan, voters in Washington, D.C. approved a basic right to shelter. The ballot initiative made the Black-majority and newly self-governing city one of the first jurisdictions in the country to legislate a right to shelter and, to this day, the only one to do so by popular vote (Greenberger, Brown, & Bowden, 1993; Roisman, 1991). In March 1985, when the law went to effect, a decent place to sleep each night was supposed to be available to anyone in the city who needed it. Instead, shelter space was limited and exposed residents to beatings, rats, lice, and scabies. After six years of laborious and multi-sited policy-making efforts by a range of actors – community activists, judges, lawyers, legislators, agency employees, and the mayoral administra- tion – rights to these 'virtual hell-holes' were undone."
Massachusetts
Portland, Oregon
(6) Homeless Bill of Rights
(7) Critiques
Robert Ellickson
Ellickson, Robert C. [1992] "The Untenable Case for an Unconditional Right to Shelter." 15 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Policy 17 1992. Available as Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 459: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/459.
Abstract:
"As homelessness has become a prominent domestic issue, numerous advocates have called for constitutional recognition of an individual's unconditional right to enjoy a minimum level of shelter. I argue here that these advocates have failed to deal with the fundamental fact that a society must maintain incentives to work. Both theory and data indicate that an unconditional shelter right, presumably coupled with ironclad rights to enjoy other material benefits, would be counterproductive, even for the poor. My stance is grounded on policy considerations, not on a preference for constitutional minimalism. Indeed, after criticizing the proposed right to shelter, I will identify and praise two momentous, but little-heralded, original endowments that our current constitutional scheme guarantees to each citizen. "My remarks will touch on three overarching issues in the design of a constitution's bill of rights. First, should a bill of rights protect only "negative liberties," that is, rights against government intrusions, or should it also affirm specified "positive liberties," such as entitlements to a minimum level of material welfare? Second, should a constitution's bill of rights be complemented with a "bill of duties" that specifies each citizen's civic responsibilities? Finally, what rights in a federal system are appropriately placed only in a state constitution's bill of rights?"
Peter Salins
Salins, Peter D. "Comment on Chester Hartman’s 'The Case for a Right to Housing’: Housing Is a Right? Wrong!" Housing Policy Debate, Volume 9, Issue 2 259, 1998. https://www.innovations.harvard.edu/comment-chester-hartmans-case-right-housing-housing-right-wrong.
Summary:
Although currently neither politically nor fiscally feasible, the notion that access to inexpensive, presumably high-quality housing should be a government-guaranteed universal right would be a terrible idea even if it were popular and affordable. The proposition fails on three counts. It isn't necessary. It doesn't make economic sense. And, most compelling, were such a policy to be implemented, its putative beneficiaries would not thank us. Even if we should not promulgate a right to decent, affordable housing,we want to assure that all Americans have access to decent, affordable housing. Happily, we can count on the private housing market (coupled with rising prosperity) to serve 95 percent of the country's households. Serving the remaining 5 percent requires concerted measures to scale back onerous housing regulations that prevent the private housing sector from meeting the needs of lower- income and untypical households.
(8) Constructing a legal right to housing
[this section is part of the article collection / community book Village Buildings].
Moms4 Housing protest, Magnolia St, Oakland; photo by Molly Solomon
Solomon, Molly. "What Would 'Housing as a Human Right' Look Like in California?" KQED News, 12 Feb 2020. https://www.kqed.org/news/11801176/what-would-housing-as-a-human-right-look-like-in-california.
"Activists with a group of women that took over a vacant house in Oakland want to make the protest chant, ‘housing is a human right’ a reality by changing the California constitution.
"The group, Moms 4 Housing, is having preliminary conversations with East Bay Democratic Assemblyman Rob Bonta to introduce legislation that would 'establish a fundamental human right to housing,' said Leah Simon-Weisberg, an attorney representing the group. Details about what exactly would be in the proposed legislation or when it would be introduced are still being worked out, she said." [...]
"A right to adequate housing is not a requirement that states build free housing for the entire population, said Eric Tars, legal director at the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. Rather, he said, it devotes resources and protective measures to prevent homelessness, discrimination and promote permanent stable housing. That could take the form of more public housing and vouchers, incentives to develop affordable housing, rent control and inclusionary zoning.
“What that looks like at the local level is a lot of things that our country is doing already, but it needs to be brought to a fuller scale,” Tars said.
"Tars has spent most of his career researching housing and human rights law, and said it will take a bold move, like a legal right to housing, to address the country’s affordability crisis and growing homeless population. And time and political pressure is needed to shift housing policy at a local and national level toward a rights-based paradigm.
"'I'm hopeful that we're laying the rhetorical framework to envision housing as a right so that we can then build the political momentum to actually implement it,' Tars said.
"Recognizing a legal or human right to housing could give advocates, tenants and people experiencing homelessness a tool to hold landlords legally responsible for spiking rents high or to sue cities that are not building sufficient affordable housing."
Alexander, Lisa T [2015]. "Occupying the Constitutional Right to Housing." 94 Neb. L. Rev. 245 (2015). Available at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/766.
"This Article's central thesis is that the conflict and contestation between [U.S. housing rights movements and private property advocates who seek to thwart these movements' efforts] helps forge new understandings of how local housing and property entitlements can be equitably allocated, consistent with the human right to housing and U.S. constitutional norms. While there is no formal federal, state, or constitutional right to housing in America, these movements' illegal occupations and local housing reforms concretize the human right to housing in local American laws, associate the human right to housing with well-accepted constitutional norms, and establish the contours of the human right to housing in the American legal consciousness.' These movements construct the human right to housing in American law by establishing through private and local laws a right to remain, a right to adequate and sustainable shelter, a right to housing in a location that preserves cultural heritage, a right to a self-determined community, and a right to equal housing opportunities for non-property owners, among other rights. By challenging local property rights, these movements also demonstrate how non-property owners, who lack adequate housing, also lack equal dignity, equal opportunity, equal citizenship, privacy, personal autonomy, and self-determination-all norms explicit in the U.S. constitutional order."
Note particularly:
III. Occupying the American Right to Housing
A. Eminent Domain for Squatters' Control of Land
B. Eminent Domain for Local Principal Reduction
C. Zoning Micro-Homes for the Homeless
(7) Selected organizations
this is a [very incomplete] list of organizations whose advocacy particularly centers on "Right to housing" concepts. A wide variety of housing and social justice groups refer to the concepts to some degree.
People's Action
"National grassroots organizing network. We build power for the multiracial working class. #PeoplesWave #HomesGuarantee #Medicare4All #PeoplePlanet1st
The Front Lines of Change. peoplesaction.org"
-> #HomesGuarantee initiative, seems to have launched in December 2018. Twitter: #HomesGuarantee.
{{#widget:Tweet |id=1148284612172320768 |conversation=none }}
{{#widget:Tweet |id=1071157155049422849 |conversation=none }}
A National Homes Guarantee: Briefing Book
People's Action's proposal, was released on September 5, 2019. Summary.
BUILD 12 MILLION SOCIAL HOUSING UNITS AND ERADICATE HOMELESSNESS 4
SOCIAL HOUSING 4
DEVELOPMENT AND ACQUISITION 4
JOBS AND CONSTRUCTION 4
COMMUNITY TIES, SERVICES, AND DESIGN 5
PERMANENT SUPPORTIVE HOUSING 5
LOCATION 6
OWNERSHIP 6
RESIDENTS 6
RENT 6
GOVERNANCE AND MANAGEMENT 7
DECARBONIZATION AND RESILIENCY 7
FUNDING 8
REINVEST IN EXISTING PUBLIC HOUSING 8
PUBLIC OWNERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT 9
PRESERVATION AND REPLACEMENT 9
DECARBONIZATION AND RESILIENCY 9
FUNDING 10
PROTECT RENTERS AND BANK TENANTS 11
NATIONAL TENANT BILL OF RIGHTS 11
BANK TENANTS 12
FREEDOM FROM DISCRIMINATION 13
CONSUMER PROTECTIONS 13
COMMUNITY CONTROL AND ANTI-DISPLACEMENT 13
PAY REPARATIONS FOR CENTURIES OF RACIST LAND AND HOUSING POLICY 14
REPARATIONS 14
PRINCIPAL CANCELLATION OR REDUCTION 15
GRANTS AND CAPITAL 15
FAIR HOUSING 15
END LAND AND REAL ESTATE SPECULATION AND DE-COMMODIFY HOUSING 15
LAND VALUE UPLIFT TAX 16
FLIPPING TAX 16
OUT OF STATE TRANSACTION TAX 17
BLIGHT AND VACANCY TAX 17
DATA AND TRACKING 17
ESTABLISH A PEOPLE’S HOUSING COMMISSION 17
A HOMES GUARANTEE AND A GREEN NEW DEAL
Cities for Adequate Housing
from Cities for Adequate Housing's "Municipalist Declaration of Local Governments for the Right to Housing and the Right to the City." New York, 16th July 2018:
Building on the milestones of the New Urban Agenda of Habitat III (Quito, 2016) and the momentum of “The Shift”, a global initiative on the right to housing, the signatory cities below take part in this High-Level Political Forum of the United Nations to follow up on Sustainable Development Goal 11 (SDG11: “Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable” by 2030), with the support of UCLG (United Cities and Local Governments), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and Leilani Farha, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to housing. We, the local governments, are the public officials who are most sensitive to the everyday needs of our citizens. In the contemporary world, lack of national and state funding, market deregulation, growing power of global corporations, and increasing competition for scarce real estate often become a burden on our neighbourhoods, causing serious distortions in their social fabric, and putting the goal of ensuring equitable, inclusive, and just cities at risk. We, the local governments strongly believe that all people should have actual access to “adequate housing”, understood by the United Nations as the one that has the correct “affordability”, “legal security of tenure”, “habitability”, “availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure”“accessibility”, “location” and “cultural adequacy”. Nevertheless, real estate speculation, high cost housing, inadequate regulation, socio-spatial segregation, insecurity of tenure, substandard housing, homelessness, urban sprawl or informal urban enlargements without requisite facilities or infrastructure, are growing phenomena that threaten the equity and sustainability of our cities. Given this situation, local governments cannot stay on the sidelines, and need to take a central role. For all these reasons, we call for the following actions.
- More powers to better regulate the real estate market
We demand more legal and fiscal powers to regulate the real estate market in order to fight against speculation and guarantee the social function of the city.
- More funds to improve our public housing stocks
We demand more resources and commit increased investment to strengthen the public housing rental stock in all of our neighbourhoods.
- More tools to co-produce public-private community-driven alternative housing
We are committed to boosting mixed residential solutions, which are neither solely government-driven nor purely based on commercial gain.
- An urban planning that combines adequate housing with quality, inclusive and sustainable neighbourhoods
We are committed to planning mixed, compact and polycentric cities where housing benefits from a balanced context and contributes to the social, economic and environmental sustainability of the urban fabric.
- A municipalist cooperation in residential strategies
We want to enhance cooperation and solidarity within city networks that defend affordable housing and equitable, just, and inclusive cities by boosting long-term strategies on a metropolitan scale.
National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty
see Tars [2018].
Portland: Neighbors Welcome
formed in 2019.
portlandneighborswelcome.org.
Right to Housing Coalition (Ontario)
Occupy Our Homes movement
Take Back the Land movement
Home Defenders' League (HDL)
See also:
References
Alexander, Lisa T [2015]. "Occupying the Constitutional Right to Housing." 94 Neb. L. Rev. 245 (2015). Available at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/766.
"This Article's central thesis is that the conflict and contestation between [U.S. housing rights movements and private property advocates who seek to thwart these movements' efforts] helps forge new understandings of how local housing and property entitlements can be equitably allocated, consistent with the human right to housing and U.S. constitutional norms. While there is no formal federal, state, or constitutional right to housing in America, these movements' illegal occupations and local housing reforms concretize the human right to housing in local American laws, associate the human right to housing with well-accepted constitutional norms, and establish the contours of the human right to housing in the American legal consciousness.' These movements construct the human right to housing in American law by establishing through private and local laws a right to remain, a right to adequate and sustainable shelter, a right to housing in a location that preserves cultural heritage, a right to a self-determined community, and a right to equal housing opportunities for non-property owners, among other rights. By challenging local property rights, these movements also demonstrate how non-property owners, who lack adequate housing, also lack equal dignity, equal opportunity, equal citizenship, privacy, personal autonomy, and self-determination-all norms explicit in the U.S. constitutional order.
Note particularly:
III. Occupying the American Right to Housing
A. Eminent Domain for Squatters' Control of Land
B. Eminent Domain for Local Principal Reduction
C. Zoning Micro-Homes for the Homeless
Bratt, Rachel G., Michael E. Stone, and Chester Hartman, editors. A Right to Housing: Foundation for a New Social Agenda. Temple University Press, 2006. Overview, contents, and Introduction. Google Books. PDF. ePub.
Carter, Dennis. "Here’s What a ‘Housing as a Human Right’ Bill Looks Like." Rewire News, Feb 20, 2019, 5:23pm. https://rewire.news/article/2019/02/20/what-housing-as-a-human-right-bill-looks-like/.
Cities for Adequate Housing. "Municipalist Declaration of Local Governments for the Right to Housing and the Right to the City." New York, 16th July 2018. https://citiesforhousing.org/. Full text.
Cohen, Daniel Aldana. "A Green New Deal for Housing." Jacobin, 02.08.2019.
https://jacobinmag.com/2019/02/green-new-deal-housing-ocasio-cortez-climate.
Craig, Tim. "Should people have a right to sleep on city streets? Texas joins national battle over urban homeless crisis." Washington Post, 22 August 2019. https://beta.washingtonpost.com/national/austin-eases-rules-for-sleeping-on-street--and-tests-tolerance-levels/2019/08/21/f67efb20-c1df-11e9-9986-1fb3e4397be4_story.html.
Ellickson, Robert C. [1992] "The Untenable Case for an Unconditional Right to Shelter." 15 Harv. J. L. & Pub. Policy 17 1992. Available as Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 459: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/459.
Farhi, Leilani [2018a]. "Report of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context." 18 September 2018. http://unhousingrapp.org/user/pages/04.resources/A-73-301-Rev1p.pdf.
"Examines the issue of the right to housing for residents of informal settlements and the commitment made by States to upgrade such settlements by 2030. Nearly one quarter of the world’s urban population lives in informal settlements or encampments, most in developing countries but increasingly also in the most affluent.
"The scope and severity of the living conditions in informal settlements make this one of the most pervasive violations of human rights globally. The world has come to accept the unacceptable. It is a human rights imperative that informal settlements be upgraded to meet basic standards of human dignity.
Farha, Leilani [2018b]. "Housing is a human rights issue – and 2018 must be the year to address it." The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2018/jan/02/2018-global-housing-crisis-us-canada-homelessness.
Glasser, Irene, and Rae Bridgman. (2004). "Homelessness, international perspectives on." in Levinson, David, ed. (2004). Encyclopedia of Homelessness.
Habitat International Coalition. (1987). "Limuru Declaration." 01-01-1987. http://www.hic-gs.org/document.php?pid=2519
Hartman, Chester. "The Case for a Right to Housing." Housing Policy Debate 1998, 9(2), 233–246. https://docs.escr-net.org/usr_doc/hpd_0902_hartman.pdf; reprinted with changes in Bratt, Stone, & Hartmann [2006]. Hartman, Chester. "The Case for a Right to Housing." Housing Policy Debate, Volume 9, Issue 2 223, 1998.
Hartman, Chester, and Rachel G. Bratt. "The Case for a Right to Housing." Shelterforce. Issue #148, Winter 2006.
http://nhi.org/online/issues/148/righttohousing.html.
Hohmann, Jessie. The Right to Housing: Laws, Concepts, Possibilities. (2013). Introduction: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2247295.
Hohmann, Jessie (2019). "The Right to Housing." in M. Moos (ed). A Research Agenda on Housing (Edward Elgar, 2019 – forthcoming). https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3355797.
Morrison, Jeff. "Right to Housing is Now Law in Canada: So Now What?" Canadian Housing and Renewal Association, Jul 05, 2019.
Maxwell, D. (2019). "A Human Right to Housing?" https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/housing-after-grenfell/blog/2019/02/human-right-housing.
Naznin, S M Atia. "Researching the Right to Housing." topic outline and research review. Globalex (NYU Hauser Global Law School), 2018. https://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/Housing_Rights.html.
New York City Bar Association, International Human Rights Committee (2016). "Advancing The Right To Housing In The United States: Using International Law As A Foundation." February 2016. https://www2.nycbar.org/pdf/report/uploads/20072632-AdvancingtheRighttoHousingIHR2122016final.pdf.
People's Action. "A National Homes Guarantee: Briefing Book". September 5, 2019.
https://homesguarantee.com/wp-content/uploads/Homes-Guarantee-_-Briefing-Book.pdf.
Raghuveer, Tara. "It’s Time for a Homes Guarantee." Truthout, January 15, 2019. https://truthout.org/articles/its-time-for-a-homes-guarantee/.
Rankin, Sara K. (2015). "A Homeless Bill of Rights (Revolution)." https://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1532.
Salins, Peter D. "Comment on Chester Hartman’s 'The Case for a Right to Housing’: Housing Is a Right? Wrong!" Housing Policy Debate, Volume 9, Issue 2 259, 1998. https://www.innovations.harvard.edu/comment-chester-hartmans-case-right-housing-housing-right-wrong.
Solomon, Molly. "What Would 'Housing as a Human Right' Look Like in California?" KQED News, 12 Feb 2020. https://www.kqed.org/news/11801176/what-would-housing-as-a-human-right-look-like-in-california.
Steinberg, Darrell [2019a]. "Op-Ed: Building more permanent housing alone won’t solve homelessness in California." Los Angeles Times, July 17, 2019. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-07-16/op-ed-building-more-permanent-housing-alone-wont-solve-homelessness-in-california.
Steinberg, Darrell [2019b]. "California should make clear there is a right to housing, not simply shelter." CalMatters, August 25, 2019. https://calmatters.org/commentary/california-should-make-clear-there-is-a-right-to-housing-not-simply-shelter/.
Stockard, James. "Opinion: Why affordable housing needs to be a right, not a privilege." Ideas.TED.com, May 19, 2017. http://ideas.ted.com/opinion-why-affordable-housing-needs-to-be-a-right-not-a-privilege/.
Tars, Eric [2018]. (National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty). "Housing as a Human Right." https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/AG-2018/Ch01-S06_Housing-Human-Right_2018.pdf.
Turner, B., (Ed.). (1988). Building Community: A Third World Case Book. A Summary of the Habitat International Coalition Non-Governmental Organization’s Project for the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless, 1987, in association with Habitat Forum Berlin.
United Nations (1984). "Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment." https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-9&chapter=4&clang=_en.
United Nations Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, UN
United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) - Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). "Housing Rights Legislation: Review of International and National Legal Instruments." Nairobi, 2002. https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/HousingRightsen.pdf.
Wells, Katie J. (2019). "Policy-failing: a repealed right to shelter." Urban Geography. DOI: 10.1080/02723638.2019.1598733.
Yeung, Peter. "A New Law in Portugal Makes Housing a Right. [The Basic Housing Law is a reaction to a significant and rapid escalation of housing prices and dearth of affordable homes]." Pacific Standard, JUL 17, 2019. https://psmag.com/social-justice/portugal-instates-a-not-so-basic-housing-law.
Young, Katharine G. (2008). "The Minimum Core of Economic and Social Rights: A Concept in Search of Content." The Yale Journal of International Law, 33:113-175. https://web.archive.org/web/20160423152620/http://www.yale.edu/yjil/PDFs/vol_33/Young%20Final.pdf.
Zapata MA,* Liu J,** Everett L, Hulseman P, Potiowsky T, & Willingham E. [2019]. Governance, Costs, and Revenue Raising to Address and Prevent Homelessness in the Portland Tri-County Region. Portland State University.https://www.pdx.edu/syndication/sites/www.pdx.edu.syndication/files/HRAC-NERC%20Final%20Draft%20JG%207AM8_20_2019.pdf. *First author & **second author. All other authors listed in alphabetical order. For questions, please contact: Marisa A. Zapata (mazapata@pdx.edu).