Council on urban initiatives
This paper argues that housing is a fundamental human right essential for well-being and other rights. It emphasizes the need for a mission-oriented and human rights-based approach to address the housing crisis, advocating for bold government missions aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of adequate housing for all. The authors call for collaborative efforts across sectors to reshape policies and prioritize human flourishing in housing initiatives.
2023
The right to housing: A mission-oriented and human rights-based approach
Housing is a fundamental human right, because it is key to human well-being and provides a foundation for other rights, including rights to health, education, water and sanitation, freedom of association and freedom of expression, and the right to life itself. It is one of the underlying key capabilities, which Amartya Sen argues is required for opportunities to be harnessed (Sen 1985). The United Nations has determined that the right to adequate housing should not be interpreted narrowly, such as being limited to having shelter or viewed exclusively as a commodity, but rather it is to be understood in a far broader sense: the right to live in peace, security and dignity (UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights 1991). Realising this right in practice, however, requires new thinking and new policies. The stark reality is that we are a long way from achieving this goal. Our paper suggests that to make this ambition real, we must bring a human rights approach together with new economic thinking and mission-orientedâoutcomes-drivenâ economic policies. These frameworks can reinforce one another. While the former invokes legal accountability for ensuring adequate housing for all in support of human flourishing, the latter organises and accelerates the multi-stakeholder, whole-of-government action required to meet this obligation. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) of achieving âaccess for all to adequate, safe and affordable housingâ (SDG 11.1) can provide a north star orientation for this new policy approach. But achieving it requires unpicking the relationships between current actors. It requires governments to set bold missions that catalyse cross-sectoral investment and collaboration, to embrace their role as market-shapers, to align public sector tools, institutions and finance with these missions, and to design partnerships â including with the private sector â that prioritise human rights and the common good. Over a billion people worldwide are living without a home or in grossly inadequate housing, lacking basic services like clean water, sanitation and electricity (UN-Habitat 2022). In every city around the world, housing is unaffordable for low and middle-income people, with housing costs growing faster than incomes (UN-Habitat 2022). Eviction is a common experience in the Global South as well as in the Global North (Weinstein 2021; Medvedeva et al. 2021). The housing system is increasingly controlled by actors whose primary interest is maximising profits. Homes are treated as financial assets rather than places to live. A collapse in the public provision of housing and the de-regulation of market-based housing, planning and housing finance has led to a rapid rise in house prices relative to incomes. Housing rents in major cities have also risen much faster than median incomes. Moreover, the challenges of the current housing system are even more acute when seen in the context of climate change. Buildings and their construction constitute approximately 36% of global CO2 emissions (HUD Office of Policy Development and Research 2022) and every year approximately 22 million people are displaced by climate-related events, often forced into cities where housing is prohibitively expensive and the only option is to live in an informal settlement (UN-Habitat 2022). Cities are epicentres of these challenges, with more than half of the worldâs population living in urban areas and cities accounting for 80% of global GDP (The World Bank 2022). This paper proposes a new framework to guide governments in bringing about more sustainable, inclusive and resilient cities and human settlements; a framework that marries a mission-oriented approach to policy design with a human rights-based approach, putting human flourishing at the centre. Together, these frameworks provide the impetus, accountability, ambition and focus needed to re-shape economies to align with internationally agreed upon values and standards, to prioritise the common good and to address the grand challenge posed by the housing crisis. This paper reframes the housing crisis as a solvable problem that demands a different approach from all levels of government, from national to local â one that sets bold missions like SDG 11.1, and that reshapes markets and redesigns policies, institutions and tools to align with these missions, with the right to housing creating the legal accountability to deliver on these missions.