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Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 5
- Paragraph text
- In her previous report (A/67/286, paras. 10-13), the Special Rapporteur highlighted how the deregulation, liberalization and globalization of housing finance have had major implications for housing and urban development, eventually leading to the global affordability and housing crisis we are witnessing today. Housing costs are disproportionately affecting the poor and in Europe represent an average of 41 per cent of the income of people at risk of poverty. The affordability crisis is compounded by the erosion, neglect and liberalization of non-market mechanisms for allocating housing resources, such as rental housing (public and private) and different forms of cooperative and collective ownership, among others.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 7
- Paragraph text
- In her previous report, the Special Rapporteur analysed the main housing finance policies implemented as a means of facilitating access of the poorest to homeownership. The sections below summarize the main findings with regard to the impact of those approaches on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 8
- Paragraph text
- In recent years market-based housing finance has rapidly spread throughout the world, mainly targeting the more affluent segments of society that have had the initial capital to take a mortgage, profiting lenders through the payment of interest. Traditionally, mortgage finance has been considered unattainable for the poor owing to issues such as lack of land titles, low and erratic income and employment in the informal sector.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 9
- Paragraph text
- However, during the past two decades new mortgage products were designed specifically for borrowers with low incomes or poor credit history who were not eligible for regular mortgage finance, generating sub-prime loans. Although those lending policies were intended to enable access to credit for low-income households, they are extremely discriminatory: the poorer the credit taker, the higher the interest he/she has to pay. High-interest loans led to ever-increasing household indebtedness, economic insecurity, mortgage arrears and repossession rates. Poor households were forced to reduce expenditure on other essential needs, like food or medicines, in order to meet their housing debt.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 11
- Paragraph text
- The discrepancy between income levels and soaring housing and rental prices coupled with increasing unemployment have led to more payment default, foreclosures and homelessness. These processes are exacerbated by the adoption of legal and institutional adjustments aimed at facilitating foreclosures, which have been promoted in recent years as "imperatives for developing a housing finance system". The crisis has disproportionately affected the poorest and most vulnerable, who were the last to join the mortgage markets and the first to suffer the consequences of the crises owing to their low resilience to economic shocks and low repayment abilities.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 17
- Paragraph text
- Until the 1980s, slum dwellers and the urban poor had not been a target for financial services. However, in the 1980s private financial investors came to regard the poor as "bankable", and in the past 10 years, a growing number of housing microfinance programmes emerged offering loans to low-income households. Housing microfinance loans are much smaller than mortgages, are typically granted for shorter terms and are used mainly to finance progressive improvements to housing (for example, building sanitary amenities) and expansions to an existing dwelling.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Poverty
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 18
- Paragraph text
- Most housing microfinance initiatives originate in developing countries and emerging markets - Latin America, Asia and, to a lesser extent, in Africa. Although microfinance agency interest rates are typically lower than those of informal moneylenders, they are much higher (between 20 and 50 per cent) than those charged by formal financial institutions and have much shorter maturities. The poorer the client, the more likely the housing microfinance agency will attempt to manage default risk by reducing the size as well as the time over which the client must repay the loan and by increasing the interest rate. The use of floating rates of interest also leads to increases over the repayment period, sometimes up to double the original rate. It is therefore questionable whether housing microfinance fosters housing affordability for the urban poor or whether, in some cases, it leads to increased indebtedness.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 20
- Paragraph text
- Housing finance policies based on credit for homeownership are inherently discriminatory against lower-income households and, at their best, promote affordable access for upper- and middle-income groups. Housing finance policies often "redline" the poor, who are required to pay much higher prices for financial services, exposing them to financial risks and indebtedness. At the same time, housing finance policies tend to focus solely on access to a roof while failing to effectively and comprehensively address the various elements of the right to adequate housing: location, access to infrastructure and services, habitability, cultural adequacy and security of tenure. At the macro level, the disproportionate use of such policies has contributed to price volatility and to the ongoing housing affordability and availability crises.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 22
- Paragraph text
- The sections below provide a review of alternative housing policies for the urban poor that have been largely ignored by States in recent years - rental arrangements and collective and tenure - while analysing their compatibility with the promotion of the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 25
- Paragraph text
- Despite the decline in support for rental housing, the absolute number of tenants worldwide is rising. Across the world, approximately 1.2 billion people (around one third of the urban population and one sixth of all people in the world) live in rented accommodation, the great majority in towns and cities. In many European countries the private rental sector, including informal, is playing a growing role for the poor, owing to inadequate access to social housing and greater constraints in accessing ownership. In developing countries, the largest proportion of tenants is in urban Africa; in Asia, tenants comprise approximately one third of the urban population.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 27
- Paragraph text
- The access of poor households to rental housing is currently impeded by costs, mainly as a result of rising rent prices and a shortage of affordable rental housing. More and more households in Europe are facing difficulties in paying the rent (3.8 per cent of Europeans, and 8.6 per cent of those with income below 60 per cent of the median national income). Rent affordability issues are more widespread in developing countries where rental housing is even less available. The rent-to-income ratio for African cities is more than twice that of cities in high-income countries at 39.5 per cent of income.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 28
- Paragraph text
- Significant increases in the supply of private rented housing are therefore necessary to help empower lower income tenants in the rental market and relieve affordability problems. In addition, demand-side policies are required to increase the affordability of the rental sector for the poor. Although most Governments have focused their efforts on increasing individual homeownership, there are some good examples of supply- and demand-based policies aimed at encouraging the small-scale private rental sector and increasing rent affordability for low-income households. Such interventions include taxation, direct or indirect subsidies, and regulation. State policies towards the informal rental sector also affect the accessibility of the poorest to rental arrangements.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 32
- Paragraph text
- Some countries have been implementing rent assistance programmes in order to address affordability problems (see A/HRC/13/20/Add.4, paras. 10 and 25). However, evidence indicates that such initiatives, in the absence of other policies regulating markets and assisting recipients of housing allowances, are not sufficient to provide adequate and affordable rental housing for low-income households. In countries in which rental supply is limited, subsidies schemes actually lead to an increase in rental prices and shortages of rental stock for low-income earners. Low income households receiving housing benefits often face difficulties in finding and keeping habitable accommodation in adequate locations with access to services, despite the extra purchasing power, owing to the low value of the benefits (given the rise in rental prices) and discrimination against vulnerable groups in the private rental market (see A/HRC/13/20/Add.4, paras. 17-26). In addition, means testing for housing benefits is often complicated, targeting is not always effective and allocation procedures encourage corruption. The tight conditioning of housing benefits on income levels has been criticized for failing to reach all beneficiaries (for example, only 40 per cent of private renters living in poverty in England are in receipt of housing benefit). Furthermore, the substantial cuts in housing benefits currently applied in various countries as part of recent austerity measures are likely to exacerbate the problem (see A/67/286, para. 32).
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 33
- Paragraph text
- On the other hand, the cost of rent subsidies for low-income households is significantly lower than the cost of subsidies for homeownership. Moreover, for families with a very low and unstable income, rent subsidies can provide a better alternative than homeownership. Research done in Brazil, for instance, has shown that very low-income households tend to sell their private homes, in particular the very poorly located ones, and move back to informal settlements.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Families
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 40
- Paragraph text
- A variety of rental sub-markets exists, including rooms in inner city tenements, custom-built tenements, rooms in informal settlements, renting land and building rental units to let or building units in the backyard of dwellings. The trend is particularly noticeable in Latin America, where informal owners enlarge their homes to house tenants in order to rise their incomes. In Sub-Saharan Africa, taking in lodgers within the existing structure is common in several countries. The transformation of Government-built housing to include rental units is widespread in Northern Africa as well as Sub-Saharan Africa. In Asia, informal rental ranges from unlicensed high-rise buildings that accommodate migrant workers in the "urban villages" of China to rented plots in some Indian and Thai cities where tenants build their own shelter. Most of those options - ignored by regulations - offer very precarious conditions to tenants.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 44
- Paragraph text
- Adequate housing must be in a location that allows access to employment options and public services. This is particularly relevant to poor households since the financial costs of travelling to work can place excessive demands upon already limited budgets. With the support of State intervention, through rent subsidies to low-income households, the provision of State land to low-income rental and other measures, a private rental sector has the potential to promote access to better located, adequate housing for low-income households in urban settings.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 67
- Paragraph text
- Housing policies have increasingly been reduced to housing finance systems to promote homeownership. Evidence indicates that housing policies based exclusively on facilitating access to credit for homeownership are incompatible with the full realization of the right to adequate housing for low-income households, as they fail to supply habitable and affordable housing to the poor that is secure and well located.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Centrality of the right to adequate housing for the development and implementation of the New Urban Agenda to be adopted at Habitat III in October 2016 2015, para. 28
- Paragraph text
- The Millennium Development Goals established an international agreement around seven goals linked to ending poverty, each with specific targets and indicators. In doing so, they created an international consensus regarding the select issues that were included in the agenda. While lacking references to human rights, the Millennium Development Goals affirmed certain goals that resonated with human rights to an adequate standard of living, food, work, water and sanitation, aiming to eradicate poverty and hunger, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all and halve the number of people denied access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Water & Sanitation
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Centrality of the right to adequate housing for the development and implementation of the New Urban Agenda to be adopted at Habitat III in October 2016 2015, para. 41
- Paragraph text
- Although some of the structural causes of inequality in cities and some of the grounds and experiences of discrimination are new, an international human rights framework can be responsive. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has now recognized discrimination based on social or economic situation, including homelessness or other housing status, as a prohibited ground of discrimination. The Human Rights Committee and other treaty bodies have begun to engage directly with these issues. The guiding principles on extreme poverty and human rights specifically reference the need for States to repeal or reform laws that "criminalize life-sustaining activities in public places, such as sleeping, begging, eating or performing personal hygiene activities".
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Centrality of the right to adequate housing for the development and implementation of the New Urban Agenda to be adopted at Habitat III in October 2016 2015, para. 53
- Paragraph text
- While cities are, for some, places of opportunity and the engines of economic development, for many others they are sites of poverty, inequality and exclusion. The drive for economic growth, to create "world-class cities" and to attract international and domestic investment, has too often occurred at the expense of social inclusion and protection. Increased economic opportunities in cities should provide a lever for greater inclusion and socioeconomic equality, yet urban economies have generally tended to deepen inequality. This tension, between cities as economic drivers and cities as generators of inequality, plays out distinctly with respect to land.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Centrality of the right to adequate housing for the development and implementation of the New Urban Agenda to be adopted at Habitat III in October 2016 2015, para. 54
- Paragraph text
- Those who are affluent and own land, homes or other property in cities have dramatically increased their wealth because of speculation and inflation of values. Those who cannot afford ownership face increasing housing costs and are driven to the outskirts of cities or to informal settlements, dislocated from their sources of livelihood and lacking security of tenure. Inequality in access to land and property, affecting marginalized groups including women, migrants and all those living in poverty, has become embedded in housing inequality and spatial segregation, dividing cities between those who own land and property and have access to basic services and infrastructure and those who do not.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Women
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Financialization of housing and the right to adequate housing 2017, para. 10
- Paragraph text
- The report builds on important work undertaken by the previous Special Rapporteur on the right to housing. In her 2012 report on the impact of finance policies on the right to housing of those living in poverty (A/67/286), she warned of emerging trends towards the financialization of housing encouraged by States' abandonment of social housing programmes and increased reliance on private market solutions. She documented attempts by States to rely on the private market and homeownership, which increases inequality and fails to address the housing needs of low-income and marginalized groups. More fundamentally, she called for a paradigm shift through which housing would once again be recognized as a fundamental human right rather than as a commodity. The present report takes up that challenge.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Financialization of housing and the right to adequate housing 2017, para. 35
- Paragraph text
- The dominant impact of wealth and private investment has also created and perpetuated spatial segregation and inequality in cities. In South Africa, for example, the impact of private investment in the urban core of cities has sustained the discriminatory patterns of the apartheid area, with wealthier, predominantly white households occupying areas close to the centre and poorer black South Africans living on the peripheries of cities. That "spatial mismatch", relegating poor black households to homeownership in peri-urban areas where employment opportunities are scarce, rather than rentals in the urban core, for example, has entrenched their poverty and cemented inequality. Similar patterns of racial displacement from urban centres and segregation in evidence in large cities in the United States have led to more severe impacts of financialization and the mortgage crisis being experienced by African-American households. Financialization also creates gender segregation. In Australia, analysis has shown that average-income single female workers can afford to live in only one suburb of Melbourne and cannot afford to live anywhere in Sydney.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- Women
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Financialization of housing and the right to adequate housing 2017, para. 37
- Paragraph text
- Financialized housing markets create and thrive on gentrification and the appropriation of public value for private wealth. Improved services, schools or parks in an impoverished neighbourhood attract investment, which then drives residents out. The transformation of an old railway line in West Chelsea in Manhattan into a public walkway and park has attracted wealthy investors to a mixed income neighbourhood, radically transforming it with luxury housing units costing in the multimillions, and displacing longer term residents. In Vancouver, the opening of new public transport facilities in Burnaby, one of the few remaining areas of affordable rental housing, has quickly led to the development of expensive condominium towers, displacing residents who have not only lived there for decades, but also invested in developing their community.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Poverty
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Financialization of housing and the right to adequate housing 2017, para. 38
- Paragraph text
- Patterns of inequality are often starkest in developing countries. In Africa, if current trends continue, the number of households living in informal settlements will continue to increase while the number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals is predicted to rise by almost 50 per cent in the next decade.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Financialization of housing and the right to adequate housing 2017, para. 48
- Paragraph text
- In Egypt, after Prime Ministerial Decree No. 350/2007 removed restrictions on foreign purchases of property, land prices more than doubled in many areas, rising at a rate of 148 per cent per year between 2007 and 2011. Extension of credit for housing has been largely restricted to higher income households in Cairo and Giza, and approximately 3 million homes have been left empty or unfinished by their owners in urban areas. Poverty continues to increase and more than 12 million people live in informal housing.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Financialization of housing and the right to adequate housing 2017, para. 67
- Paragraph text
- Policy responses to the financialization of housing have tended to prioritize support for financial institutions over responding to the needs of those whose right to adequate housing is at stake. Spending on bailouts of banks and financial institutions after the 2008 financial crisis far outstripped spending to provide assistance to the victims of the crisis. In fact, many national Governments made substantial cuts to their housing programmes. As noted above, the World Bank continues to promote "financial liberalization" rather than active State intervention in housing provision in emerging economies, despite the evidence that financialization generally increases inequality and fails to address the needs of the millions of households living in situations of homelessness or grossly inadequate informal housing.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2017
Paragraph
Guiding Principles on security of tenure for the urban poor 2014, para. (N/A)
- Paragraph text
- The plight of the urban poor presents one of the most pressing challenges to security of tenure, especially in an increasingly urbanized world. These principles aim to provide guidance to States and other actors to address this challenge in order to ensure adequate housing for poor and vulnerable people in urban and peri-urban areas.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Guiding Principles on security of tenure for the urban poor 2014, para. 2a
- Paragraph text
- [In order to improve security of tenure, especially for vulnerable and marginalized persons and groups living in urban poor settlements, States, including relevant authorities, should take the following measures:] Conduct citywide assessments of tenure arrangements;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Guiding Principles on security of tenure for the urban poor 2014, para. 2b
- Paragraph text
- [In order to improve security of tenure, especially for vulnerable and marginalized persons and groups living in urban poor settlements, States, including relevant authorities, should take the following measures:] Identify insecure settlements and population groups, including the homeless;
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph