Annex 1 Annex 2 Annex 3 Annex 4

January 12, 2005

Santiago A. Cantón, Esq.

Executive Secretary

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

Organization of American States

1889 F Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20006, United States

 

Dear Mr. Cantón:

 

We, the undersigned human rights organizations, respectfully request a hearing before the Commission commencing in February 2005 so that the Commission may consider more fully the status of the right to adequate housing in the Americas, with a particular focus on Brazil, Canada, and the United States.  This letter revises a request that we have made on August 26, 2004 (attached as Annex 1).

 

In addition to our request for the hearing on the right to adequate housing for the February hearing, we also will be requesting a series of hearings in the future on the status of the right to social security and health care, as indicated in our August 26th letter.  While we understand that the Commission does not make commitments for future hearings, we do not think we can adequately address the three issues analyzed in our August 26th letter in a one-hour hearing.  Thus, we are giving the Commission notice that we will be submitting requests for a hearing on the right to social security and health care next for the Commission’s subsequent sessions in October and the following February.

 

I.                      Summary of Legal Foundation           

 

Both the American Declaration on the Rights and Duties of Man (American Declaration) and the American Convention on Human Rights (American Convention) require member states to respect, protect, and fulfill the right to adequate housing.  State parties are obligated, as a general matter, to progressively implement the right to adequate housing, although some components of this right are of immediate application (such as the right against forced evictions).  We seek a general hearing on the status of the right to adequate housing in Brazil, Canada, and the United States in order to provide a better understanding of housing rights violations in the Inter-American region generally, and in federal systems specifically.  Our August 26 letter (Annex 1) provides more detail on the legal analysis of the right to housing, and we hope to submit a comprehensive analysis of the foundation for the right to housing in the region prior to the general hearing. 

 

II.                    Brazil

 

In Brazil, there are marked disparities between various localities and communities.  Although some communities in Brazil enjoy great wealth, many others suffer from abject poverty, live in starkly inadequate housing, such as slums, and/or are homeless altogether.  In particular, severe disparities in the enjoyment of the right to adequate housing exist across gender, racial, and ethnic lines. 

 

Like the U.S. and Canada, Brazil is a federal system composed of states, each with their own housing policies.  The Brazilian Constitution, however, empowers the federal government to prepare and carry out national plans for social and economic development, and regional human rights standards obligate the Brazilian government to ensure that the right to housing is protected in all localities.  Yet, state-level policies range from those that have achieved great success at fulfilling the right to adequate housing to those that are clear and intentional violations of that right.

 

For example, the recently adopted Statute of the City (see annex 2) provides one of the most progressive pieces of legislation with respect to housing rights.  Indeed, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) has noted that the Statute of the City deserves to be analyzed as among the “Best Policies” in the area of housing rights.  This law enhances the rights of slum dwellers and implements important housing rights provisions consistent with international human rights law and should be used as a model for similar legislation throughout the Americas.

 

At the same time, as noted in the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions 2003 report on “Human Rights in Brazil,” see annex 2, airport construction and expansion in Guarulhos (the second largest city in Sao Paulo)

 

will result in the eviction and displacement of some ten thousand residents. The plan foresees only the provision of compensation rather than the provision of alternative housing. Some 90 per cent of the families to be displaced lack legal title to their homes, even though most have resided in the area for decades. The existing urban facilities in these areas, such as the water system, sewage disposal and energy provision will be rendered useless and the expansion will result in closing two schools, a health centre and a community centre. None of these community losses have been taken into consideration, and thus are not likely to be redressed. 

 

Annex 2 at p. 24.

 

While these actions are taken on the state level, the national government of Brazil is responsible for ensuring that best practices are replicated, and for preventing violations.  In particular, human rights standards require the national government to ensure that its states and localities comply with minimum core standards of the right to housing, which include protection from forced eviction as described above, and that marked and severe disparities in the housing rights of its nationals amongst localities be addressed through progressively implementing protective housing legislation in states lacking adequate guarantees for housing.

 

For further details, including statistical data and analyses, see Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, Housing Rights in Brazil: Gross Inequalities and Inconsistencies, COHRE: Geneva, 2003 (Attached as Annex 2).

 

III.                   Canada

 

Canadians also suffer disparities in the enjoyment of housing rights.  For instance, gross disparities exist between indigenous persons and other Canadians, with a severe shortage of affordable housing disproportionately affecting indigenous communities.[1]  Canada has not only failed to adequately address existing disparities, but has implemented a series of retrogressive measures that have increased and deepened housing violations for poor Canadians generally.    

 

For instance, in 1998 the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights found that “cuts of about 10 percent in social assistance rates for single people have been introduced in Manitoba; 35 percent in those for single people in Nova Scotia; and 21.6 percent in those for both families and single people in Ontario” and that those “cuts appear to have had a significantly adverse impact on vulnerable groups, causing increases in already high levels of homelessness.”[2]  Such retrogressive measures led the Committee to declare that it was “gravely concerned that such a wealthy country as Canada has allowed the problem of homelessness and inadequate housing to grow to such proportions that the mayors of Canada’s 10 largest cities have now declared homelessness a national disaster.”[3]  In 1999, the Human Rights Committee expressed its concern that “homelessness has led to serious health problems and even to death” and recommended that Canada “take positive measures required by Article 6 (right to life) to address this serious problem.”[4] 

 

Moreover, although principles of international human rights law require remedies for violations of human rights, some courts in Canada have been reluctant to provide them.  Indeed, in 1998 the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights expressed its deep concern that provincial courts in Canada have routinely opted for an interpretation of the Charter [of Rights] which excludes protection of the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to adequate housing.[5]  The Committee noted with concern that the courts have taken this position despite the fact that the Supreme Court of Canada has stated, as has the Government of Canada before the Committee, that the Charter can be interpreted so as to protect these rights.

In a federal system, when provinces or states fail to fully meet a country’s human rights obligations, the national government must take steps to either address that gap in protection directly, or ensure that the provinces or states do so. 

 

For more information about the status of housing rights in Canada, see Bruce Porter, Homelessness, Human Rights, Litigation and Law Reform: A View from Canada (2003) (Attached as Annex 3).

 

IV.              United States of America

 

The United States has a federal legal system and is a well resourced country.  In the United States, both federal and state policy impact access to adequate and affordable housing.  While some states recognize a minimal right to housing (such as New York which recognizes a right to shelter), the national government has yet to do so.  Federal law does support at least the goal of adequate housing for all, but that goal is not adequately funded.  Because housing is not considered an entitlement or right, only 34% of the United States’ 9.9 million households who are all eligible for housing assistance actually receive it. Indeed, many cities have stopped accepting applications for housing assistance programs because waiting lists have become so long.  This is particularly troubling in the context of a resource rich country, where providing minimal housing for all is well within the means of the national government. 

 

Currently, more than 3.5 million people suffer homelessness as some point within a given year, 1.35 million of whom are children.  For those homeless persons unable to obtain emergency shelter, the system’s failure can be deadly, particularly during the winter.  It can also lead to criminal punishment with homeless people in urban areas increasingly being targeted by municipal police forces for criminal offenses such as “illegal lodging” or panhandling in designated areas.  Moreover, states often remove children from families that are homeless, often eventually choosing to terminate custody rather than provide housing. 

 

While millions are affected by homelessness, even more are at risk because of the lack of affordable housing.  Approximately 14.3 million households, representing almost one in seven households in the United States, are severely burdened by the cost of housing, with housing payments accounting for more than 50% of their income.  Of these, approximately 12.5 million are at grave risk of becoming homeless, because wage levels, particularly for those working at minimum wage, are woefully insufficient to meet the rising costs of housing. 

 

Despite the affordable housing crises, in 2004 new HUD guidelines restricted federal housing assistance further, threatening an estimated 250,000 households with the loss of their housing.  Moreover, Congress cut appropriations for low-income housing as well as assistance for homeless people for 2005. An additional housing program where Congress has made recent policy decisions that will lead to decreased affordable housing for the poor is HOPE VI.  The HOPE VI program is intended to benefit the current residents of severely distressed public housing by revitalizing and renovating units and surrounding communities.  However the HOPE VI program forcibly evicts tenants without any guarantee of replacement housing.  Fifteen percent of residents recently surveyed have worse housing conditions than they did before HOPE VI.   Moreover, in 1998, Congress removed the requirement that every affordable housing unit demolished under HOPE VI be replaced.  While some localities are implementing HOPE VI to meet its stated goal of housing revitalization, the implementation is extremely uneven and the program has led to severe housing violations in many areas.   

 

The United States is bound to protect the right to housing under the American Declaration, as well as avoid deliberatively retrogressive measures as a signatory to the American Convention.[6]  Notwithstanding these legal obligations, the United States has failed to take meaningful steps at progressively realizing the right to adequate and affordable housing.  Rather, the United States has adopted and implemented cross-cutting retrogressive measures that undermine this fundamental right, with varying impacts in individual states. 

 

For further details about the status of the right to adequate housing in the U.S., see National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, Homelessness in the United States and the Human Right to Housing (2004) (Attached as Annex 4).

           

V.            Format of the Hearing and Time Required

           

Petitioners request a one hour hearing, at which petitioners will produce 1-2 experts on the regional legal issues implicated by the housing situation in these three member States, and approximately 3 victims who have suffered violations of the right to housing.  

 

Petitioners would also request that following the hearing, the Commission consider referring the issues raised to the Special Rapporteur on the United States for follow-up investigation and reporting.

 

Thank you for consideration of our request for a general hearing on these important human rights concerns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

__________________                                                  ______________________

Catherine Albisa                                                       Cheri Honkala

National Economic and                                              Jonathan Blazer    

Social Rights Initiative                                                 Bob Brown

POB  20716                                                                  Cecilia Garza

New York, NY 10009                                                  Cecilia Perry

        Adam Rafi Rom

______________________                                    Poor People’s Economic

Jennifer M. Green                                                     Human Rights Campaign  

Peter Weiss                                                              POB 50678                      

Center for Center for Constitutional Rights                  Philadelphia, PA 19132

666 Broadway, 7th Fl.                                                      

New York, NY  10012

                                     

 

________________________                                                                                       

Rhonda Copelon

International Women’s Human Rights Law Clinic

City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law

65-21 Main Street

Flushing, NY 11367

 

_______________________________                                  __________________________

Maria Foscarinis                                                            Carol Steele

National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty                                                   Noah Leavitt

1411 K Street  N.W., Suite 1400                                                Coalition to Protect Public Housing

Washington, D.C. 20005                                                984 N. Hudson

                                                                                    Chicago, IL  60610

 

             

______________________                                   ______________________

Bret Thiele, Esq.                                                           Laurene M. Heybach
Coordinator, ESC Rights Litigation Programme          Director of the Law Project                              

Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions                    Chicago Coalition for the Homeless

208 Temple Bldg.                                                        1325 S. Wabash                       

8 N. 2nd Avenue East                                                  Chicago, Illinois 60605  

Duluth, MN  55802

 

 

_______________________                                      _________________________

Bruce Porter                                                                 Leticia Osorio

Social Rights Advocacy Centre                         COHRE American Programme

1038 Portage Flyer Lane RR4                                      Rua Demetrio Ribeiro

Huntsville Ontario                                                         90010-313

Canada P1H 2J6                                                          Porto Allegre, RS

Brazil  

 


[1] Concluding Observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Canada, UN Doc. E/C.12/1/Add.31 (10 December 1998) at para. 24.

[2] Id. at para. 21.

[3] Id. at para. 24.

[4] Concluding Observations of the Human Rights Committee: Canada, UN Doc. CCPR/C/79/Add.105 (7 April 1999).

[5] Id. at para. 15.

[6] The Government of the United States signed the American Convention on 1 June 1977.  Consequently, while the U.S. has yet to ratify the American Convention, as a signatory it and its political subdivisions are still legally bound not to defeat the object and purpose of that Convention.  See, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Art. 18(a), 1155 U.N.T.S. 331, entered into force 27 January 1980.