Right to housing: Difference between revisions
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[[File:Housing-is-a-human-right-graphic-No-Gods-No-Masters.png|thumb|right|350px|graphic from https://www.no-gods-no-masters.com]] ''"Right to housing" / "Housing is a human right" ''is a concept developed in national/international law and advocacy, particularly since the mid 20th century. <br/> <br/> Twitter search query link: [https://twitter.com/search?q=#right2housing%20OR%20#righttohousing&src=typed_query&f=live #right2housing OR #righttohousing]<br/>
== (1) Categorization and levels of the right to housing ==
=== Socio-economic rights as 'poor cousins' of civil/political rights? ===
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== (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.
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== (3) Policies outside the US ==
=== Canada - National Housing Strategy Act, 2019 ===
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== (4) In US policy & advocacy ==
=== FDR's 1944 State of the Union address ===
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== (5) Critiques ==
=== Robert Ellickson ===
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Summary:
<blockquote>''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.''</blockquote>
== <br/> Selected organizations ==▼
== (6) 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. <nowiki>https://www.kqed.org/news/11801176/what-would-housing-as-a-human-right-look-like-in-california</nowiki>.<blockquote>''"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."''</blockquote>
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.<blockquote>''"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."'' </blockquote>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''
<br />
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.
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*Raghuveer, Tara. "[https://truthout.org/articles/its-time-for-a-homes-guarantee/ It’s Time for a Homes Guarantee]." Truthout, January 15, 2019. [https://truthout.org/articles/its-time-for-a-homes-guarantee/ https://truthout.org/articles/its-time-for-a-homes-guarantee/]. <br/>
*Salins, Peter D. "[https://www.innovations.harvard.edu/comment-chester-hartmans-case-right-housing-housing-right-wrong 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 https://www.innovations.harvard.edu/comment-chester-hartmans-case-right-housing-housing-right-wrong].<br/>
*Solomon, Molly. "What Would 'Housing as a Human Right' Look Like in California?" ''KQED News'', 12 Feb 2020. <nowiki>https://www.kqed.org/news/11801176/what-would-housing-as-a-human-right-look-like-in-california</nowiki>.<br />
*Steinberg, Darrell [2019a]. "Op-Ed: Building more permanent housing alone won’t solve homelessness in California." ''Los Angeles Times, ''July 17, 2019.
*Steinberg, Darrell [2019b]. "[https://calmatters.org/commentary/california-should-make-clear-there-is-a-right-to-housing-not-simply-shelter/ 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/ https://calmatters.org/commentary/california-should-make-clear-there-is-a-right-to-housing-not-simply-shelter/]. <br/>
*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/ http://ideas.ted.com/opinion-why-affordable-housing-needs-to-be-a-right-not-a-privilege/].<br/>
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