Housing is, Indeed, a Human Right by Whitney Gent (NLCHP)

 

Whitney Gent
National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP)



















Last week, the United States government officially acknowledged for the first time that reducing homelessness implicates its human rights obligations.

For nearly a decade now, the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty has been using human rights language and strategies to advocate on behalf of people experiencing homelessness. We’re working to build a movement to help realize the human right to housing in the United States.

There’s a strong foundation to build on. The U.S. helped shape the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights – both of which recognize that housing is not a privilege, but a right. President Obama has said it is “simply unacceptable for individuals, children, families and our nation’s veterans to be faced with homelessness in our country.” And last June, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness released the first ever comprehensive Federal Plan to End Homelessness.

But despite our declarations and our international treaty ratifications, homelessness is rising dramatically, people are being punished for sleeping or sitting outside even when there’s no alternative, and the current federal budget proposals would cut funding for public housing and, in some cases, homelessness programs.

The federal government’s acknowledgment that homelessness reduction is a human rights obligation does not itself change any of these facts, but it does provide advocates with another powerful tool to use in holding the government accountable to its promises. It will help us fight budget cuts that would send more people to the streets. It will help us turn the Federal Plan into federal action. It will help us build the public will we need to end homelessness in this country.

Of course, the Law Center cannot – and should not – do all of this alone. We need YOU to be a part of this movement. This June 7-8, we invite advocates from across the country to Washington D.C. for the annual National Forum on the Human Right to Housing, where we will offer trainings on how to use the tools we have gained to make progress in the movement to realize the human right to housing here. We’ll also strategize to determine how to best build on the foundation we’re laying.

The forum will feature speakers from government, the media, and the advocacy community, including:

• Peter Edelman, Professor of Law and Director of the Center on Poverty, Inequality, Public Policy, Georgetown University School of Law, and Give US Your Poor Advisory Board Member
• Barbara Ehrenreich, best-selling author of Nickel & Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
• Pam Fessler, poverty & philanthropy correspondent, National Public Radio
• Bryan Green, General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing at HUD
• Jonathan Harwitz, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy & Programs at HUD
• Gail Laster, Deputy Chief Counsel for the House Financial Services Committee
• Barbara Poppe, Executive Director, U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness

And many more! Click here for more information about the forum, and to register.

Also, watch for the release of the Law Center’s upcoming human rights report – a new tool to help advocates and government officials talk about the right to housing, this report applies the international rights framework to U.S. housing policy in the most comprehensive manner to date. Coming soon!

Whitney Gent is the Development & Communications Director for the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP).  She also edits the Homelessness Law Blog.

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Do the rights thing? by Keith Bender

Do the right thing, I've heard people say this like some mantra that guarantee's the desired outcome. As if you can always know what that is? The right thing to do is based on what? Some spiritual connection threading its way through our reality helping those who ask? Or boring ethics we ignored in school? Maybe it’s a new form of wishing people good luck when we really don't know what else to say. More probably, I hope it's an indication that we are advocating for behavior that we all deem is acceptable. Like putting people and the planet first before profits and other things like that.

Doing the Human Rights thing takes a little more knowledge than the ever-pleasing but self-centered world renown sentence nearly everyone can blurt out..... that pursuit of happiness thing. The proper context allows us to reclaim and gather our strength away from the noise we live with in our heads, competing forces struggling for our attention. When was the last time you took time to review your rights and a little history surrounding their creation? A tour of Wikipedia may very well restore some hope in humanity if you are currently feeling disenfranchised or outcast by the Financial Racism this consumer oriented object addicted society has nurtured. You know the one I mean. The place where no place is okay if you don't have an address with legit sleeping quarters attached to it. Where you know something’s wrong but you just can't put your finger on it. The place where the Police enforce property rights as precedent over human needs.

"WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF EVIDENT. THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL,

THAT THEY ARE ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS,

THAT AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF SAFETY AND HAPPINESS."

George Mason in the Virginia Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1 uses "the pursuit of Safety and Happiness." Thomas Jefferson used the combined reference again in his Rough Draft of the Declaration of Independence. Safety somehow gives way to Life and Liberty along the way and by the time it reaches Madison's desk we cover the uncovered expanse of human needs and rights in the line:

SHALL NOT BE CONSTRUED TO DENY OR DISPARAGE OTHERS RETAINED BY THE PEOPLE.

The "Others" is rights not spelled out for reasons obvious once the context of enumeration is understood. We pride ourselves in response to everyday crisis. Begin to falter when major catastrophe like Katrina or 9/11 come along and Chronic problems of safety like Homelessness seem to somehow provide a negative payback we can use to feel more fortunate about as we play the consumer game described at the Story of Stuff.

The American Dream needs its counterpart, The American NightMare? NOT!!! As polite as I can be I admit to being one of those Financial Racists I complained about earlier. A denial mechanism? A way to allow or permit this behavior to continue while I went about my life unaffected by and disengaged from feelings that would have told me something is really wrong here. Too caught up in the CAPITALISM game to realize that falling off the playing board had no real way back.

If Ending Homelessness is really our goal then like a Gold miner knowing that you have to clear a route by blasting away rock, our last 10 feet that stand in the way of the gold, the Safety clarification, is that rock needing blasting. This clarification of safety as a right must be seen as a mandate. It really is time we did the right thing for our homeless.

Keith Bender lives in West Springfield, VA where he is a writer, blogger, advocate, and "new wave old hippy." He previously was a realtor and owner of a homestaging business. Keith was recently homeless for over a year.