On 5 March 2024, in the margins of the 55th session of the Human Rights Council, the Global Cities Hub (GCH) moderated a side-event co-organized by Brazil, Finland, Germany and Namibia to address the interlinked issues of housing (un)affordability and homelessness, both very topical for local and regional governments (LRGs).
In today’s urbanized world, the majority of the population lives in cities. While there is a wide variety among national contexts, LRGs usually carry critical responsibilities in relation to the realization of the right to housing, including: infrastructure development, public services provision, land-use planning, zoning and development, housing and social programmes, market regulation, resource allocation, informal settlements upgrading, etc. The former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Ms. Leilani Farha, had presented a report on this specific subject back in 2014.
Ensuring housing affordability and ending homelessness are complex issues, as recalled by Mr. Balakrishnan Rajagopal, UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, in his latest report before the UN General Assembly. These involve many stakeholders, have ramifications with other human rights and must be addressed through various policies. As we are facing an acute global crisis of affordability affecting both North and South, low- and middle-income classes, it is high time that Governments at all levels take measures to address it. The response must be comprehensive and be supported by the understanding that housing is a human right and not a commodity to be solely regulated by the free market.
Distinguished speakers during the side-event (UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Secretary General of the Internation Union of Tenants, CEO of the Finnish Y-Foundation, the Facilitator of CityMakers Mission International, Executive Director of the Brazilian Pólis Institute) touched upon concrete measures to address this global affordability crisis. Among which the political willingness of governments, the participation of tenants in housing policies, the provision of social housing, the control of the land, the need to ensure rent transparency, to foster social responsibility within the housing private sector, to implement adequate fiscal policies, etc. Ensuring housing affordability and ending homelessness are not charity issues concerning the most disadvantaged. They are necessary investments to be made by Governments at all levels for the benefit of the society as a whole.
