Right to housing

The right to housing indicates the right of all individuals to have access to adequate shelter.

This page is part of an ongoing, open-ended online collaborative database, which collects relevant approaches that can be used by city-makers to tackle unsustainability and injustice in cities. It is based mainly on knowledge generated in EU-funded projects and touches on fast changing fields. As such, this page makes no claims of authoritative completeness and welcomes your suggestions.

General introduction to approach

In accordance with the right to housing, everyone from vulnerable and poor urban citizens to wealthier classes, should be provided with access to housing. As Michalis Gouldis from Housing Europe put it “when comes to just and sustainable cities, housing is the first topic that needs to be addressed. To solve social exclusion first, you have to give people a roof, then you think about the rest. If you see it as a ladder, housing is the very first step!”. In Europe, the right to housing is granted by several international and european laws. The network Housing Right Watch, categorizes these laws into three clusters: United Nations housing rights, Council of Europe housing rights and EU housing rights. In addition, each European country has its national laws on housing and the EU funded project TENLAW explored all the national laws per member state to inform citizens about their rights as tenants. If on the one hand housing can be provided through formal procedures (e.g. existing law enforcement), on the other hand there are multiple informal practices (e.g. squatting vacant spaces). There are numerous existing approaches where citizens, social movements and non-governmental organizations act to fill the gaps of an absent state which fails in ensuring right to housing.

Shapes, sizes and applications

Anti-gentrification toolkit (AGAPE 2014-2016): This approach responds to the increasing episodes of evictions, speculation and privatization on the urban European housing market. The anti-gentrification toolkit for policy makers and activists collects anti-eviction, anti-speculative, anti-privatization practices performed mainly in Southern European cities. For instance, tenants union lobbying has proved to be a successful practice in mitigating evictions. Similarly, social centers and housing movements have resisted displacement by squatting and re-claiming the right to use vacant urban spaces.

Tenancy and housing law (TENLAW DATE): In a number of cases around Europe national tenancy and housing law ensures citizens with housing rights. However, it often occurs that these laws are not enforced because of the inaccessible language or tenant’s lack of knowledge. The project TENLAW has developed an accessible brochure “My right as a tenant in EU” to inform citizens about their rights. Existing housing law is a legal and effective approach for citizens to see their right to housing respected. However, it might also be a limited one given that the legal system is not always a just one.

Household resilience (RESCuE DATE): A large number of vulnerable households in Europe has proven to be successful in mitigating poverty through self-initiatives which replace the absence of government’s support. Networks such as family, friends, church and other religious associations, schools, urban gardening, foodbanks, cultural events (and the list is still long) can strengthen household resilience against poverty. The project RESCuE was able to prove that housing is a fundamental aspect from which a great number of household resilience actions can be started or can take place.

Relation to UrbanA themes: Cities, sustainability, and justice

This cluster mainly addresses living conditions of vulnerable citizens in cities, although most approaches can also be implemented in rural areas . The cluster has a strong focus on social justice as all approaches’ goal is to provide vulnerable citizens with decent living standards, reducing the gap with wealthier classes who are able to fulfil all their needs. The underlying message is that social justice, i.e. social security and rights, can be achieved through formal government interventions. When such interventions are lacking, governments risk to create socially unjust dynamics: lack of housing, evictions, privatization of the public urban space, scarce food supply, and limited or no access to public transportation, education and basic income. This cluster does not include approaches which seek to achieve environmental sustainability as the end goal. Yet, in several approaches sustainability proves to go hand in hand with the pursuit of social justice. In urban areas, for instance, speculation and privatization often occur with the development of new city districts which require extensive input of natural capital; whereas most housing movements advocate for the reuse (and when needed the renovation) of existing vacant spaces as a solution to allocate social vulnerable citizens as well as to “recycle” existing spaces. In this sense, anti-gentrification practices have the potential to not only be socially just but also more sustainable. Overall, approaches to achieve social security can be implemented sustainably or can directly promote sustainability. The end goal, however, remains achieving social justice.

Narrative of change

The main problem this cluster addresses is poverty, which means that a person cannot cover their basic needs such as food, shelter, and clothing. Although Europe is the region in the world which suffers less from poverty, in 2015 there were still 7.1 million people poor people (reference). The number grows exponentially considering people who can only cover their very basic needs, but are still unemployed and do not have access to education and proper health care. Nelson Mandela stated “Overcoming poverty isn’t a gesture of charity, it is an act of justice”. The underlying premise of this cluster is that a socially just and sustainable city must provide its most vulnerable citizens with the minimal level of social security.

Transformative potential

In its standard definition, social security is a government system which provides assistance in the form of free services or payment to its citizens living in poverty. In fact, social security is often referred as welfare system. On a conceptual level, a social security system, or welfare, challenges the model of neoliberal economy which seeks to reduce government spending for public purposes in favor of private sector interventions. As the approaches in the cluster show, however, there are a multitude of non-governmental practices which aim at ensuring greater social security such as social movements, churches, charity associations, unions, community’s gardens, family and friend’s networks, schools, NGOs . These informal, and usually public, actors aim at replacing the dominant neoliberal and capitalist logic of providing services for profits. At the same time, it sends a signal to public institutions on different scales which are unable, either because of a lack of political will or incapability, to provide social security to its citizens.

Summary of relevant approach

An Urban Food Strategy (UFS) seeks to ensure social security through food production and consumption: “Food can function as a vehicle to integrate the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainability, and to address justice and health issues in cities”(Moragues at al., 2013b, p.1). A UFS can contribute to environmental sustainability by reducing emissions of Co2 throughout the whole food system chain and be more energy efficient. Its main premise is to promote more sustainable food: more local, more vegetarian, healthier, more organic and more cultural-appropriated food. On the social justice level, it can help to fight food poverty, improve access to healthier food, and ensure fairness throughout the food chain, e.g. fair compensation for farmers. The strategy has the potential to achieve social security on several levels because of its holistic approach, involving the public and private sector, policy-makers, civil society, citizens, and considering all the different stages of the food system: production, processing, storage, transport, retail, consumption and waste. Local governments play an important role in the successful implementation of a UFS. Some practical actions are: provide financial support for local food related projects; designate land for (peri)urban agriculture and gardening; allocate time to civil servants to develop UFS and involve citizens in playing an active role through educational activities. Successful cases of UFSs come from Bristol (UK) and Malmö (Sweden) . In Bristol the UFS was mainly pushed by an active civil society which led to the creation of Bristol’s Food Policy Council, which supports urban food growing networks and its people involved (see: Bristol Food Network). In Malmö, the implementation of the UFS was mainly led by Malmö municipality which set to reduce greenhouse gas emission through food procurement, by replacing meat with lentils and pulses and by aiming to only serve organic food by 2020 (see: Policy for sustainable development and food, the City of Malmö). Overall, a UFS challenges the current mainstream food system which has produced negative consequences in terms of health, environment, justice and economy. A UFS aims at addressing all these negative consequences by offering a viable sustainable and just alternative which has already proved to work in a number of cities across Europe.

References

Moragues, A.; Morgan, K.; Moschitz, H.; Neimane, I.; Nilsson, H.; Pinto, M.; Rohracher,H.; Ruiz, R.; Thuswald, M.; Tisenkopfs, T. and Halliday, J. (2013) Urban Food Strategies: the rough guide to sustainable food systems. Document developed in the framework of the FP7 project FOODLINKS (GA No. 265287)

Summary and recommendations for local governments, in: Moragues, A.; Morgan, K.; Moschitz, H.; Neimane, I.; Nilsson, H.; Pinto, M.; Rohracher,H.; Ruiz, R.; Thuswald, M.; Tisenkopfs, T. and Halliday, J. (2013) Urban Food Strategies: the rough guide to sustainable food systems. Document developed in the framework of the FP7 project FOODLINKS (GA No. 265287)