The Routledge Handbook of Housing Policy and Planning

Katrin B. Anacker, Mai Thi Nguyen, David P. Varady, Katrin B. Anacker, Mai Thi Nguyen, David P. Varady

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781317282693
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping

The Routledge Handbook of Housing Policy and Planning provides a comprehensive multidisciplinary overview of contemporary trends in housing studies, housing policies, planning for housing, and housing innovations in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Continental Europe. In 29 chapters, international scholars discuss aspects pertaining to the right to housing, inequality, homeownership, rental housing, social housing, senior housing, gentrification, cities and suburbs, and the future of housing policies.

This book is essential reading for students, policy analysts, policymakers, practitioners, and activists, as well as others interested in housing policy and planning.

Section 1

Right to Housing

1
The Right to Housing

The Goal Versus the Reality

W. Dennis Keating

Introduction

Housing encompasses many aspects beyond the basic necessity for adequate shelter. In the physical sense, it should be safe and secure. In the economic sense, it should be affordable. In the social sense, it should not be overcrowded, its location should provide access to services, occupants should have security of tenure, and home seekers should not experience discrimination based on race/ethnicity, disabilities, family structure (i.e., the presence of children), gender, sexual preference, or source of income. While the meaning of the terms “adequate” and “shelter” can be debated, these other characteristics can be measured.

This chapter will identify the extent to which a right to housing has been recognized and whether, formally or not, adequate housing has been provided. While a right to housing has been adopted by a number of countries, no country has yet fully implemented such a right. This chapter will review international declarations of the right to housing and analyze several case studies, including the United States, Europe (including France and the United Kingdom), Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in order to better understand the dilemmas associated with right to housing declarations.

International Declarations

The right to housing has been recognized internationally since the founding of the United Nations (UN). The guarantee of this right can be found in several documents, including Article 25, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (as part of an adequate standard of living) (1948; U.N. Human Rights Council 2015). The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) (Article 11[1](1966), the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR)) states:

The States Parties to the Present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions. The States Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure realization of this right, recognizing to this effect the essential importance of international co-operation based on free consent.

(n.p.)

Hohmann (2013) notes:

[I]mplementation of the ICESCR is notoriously underachieved. Even the richest countries regularly fail to provide the minimum core of the Covenant rights, thus “prima facie, failing to discharge their obligations under the Covenant”. This is not only a problem of political will, though lack of such is clearly significant. Both theoretical and practical problems lead to legitimate difficulties in the right to housing’s implementation and enjoyment.

(19)

This quote underscores the reality that a right to housing, if adopted, is only a relative, not an absolute right.

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has provided a Fact Sheet (No. 21/Rev. 1) (2009) on “The Right to Adequate Housing.” Its definition of “adequate” housing encompasses the aforementioned attributes. It specifies three freedoms: (1) protection against forced evictions and arbitrary destruction and demolition of one’s home; (2) the right to be free from arbitrary interference with one’s home, privacy, and family; and (3) the right to choose one’s residence., i.e., to determine where to live and to have freedom of movement. It specifies four entitlements: (1) security of tenure; (2) housing, land, and property restitution (meaning compensation for its seizure); (3) equal and nondiscriminatory access to adequate housing; and (4) participation in housing-related decision-making at the national and community levels.

While the UN labels these attributes as “freedoms” and “entitlements,” these are obviously aspirational and not guaranteed by UN agencies involved in housing.

The UN does have a Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to adequate standard of living. This position is honorary, filled by an expert who reports to the Human Rights Council. In her December 2015 report to the UN Human Rights Council, Leilana Farha addressed homelessness as a global human rights crisis in violation of the right to adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living and the right to nondiscrimination (Farha 2015). Minimally, she defined it as the absence of “home”—secure shelter—and beyond that as having the absence of discrimination, criminalization, and marginalization. She cited international examples of national and local laws making the homeless into lawbreakers and also cited international examples of marginalized groups of the homeless, including women, children, migrants, and the disabled. Then she proposed a global campaign to eliminate homelessness by 2030.

Selected Case Studies

In addition to these international declarations, some countries have legally established a right to housing. However, such international declarations and national policies do not mean that the right to housing has actually been achieved. In all too many countries there are shortages of housing, physically inadequate shelter, and discrimination. Slum dwellers in informal housing, often lacking basic infrastructure and services, occupy some of the worst housing, typically located on the fringes of mega-cities (Davy and Pellissery 2013). Mostly found in the developing world, this informal housing would generally be considered to be inadequate. In the worst cases, there is homelessness, most notably among refugees. International, national, and local housing and human rights organizations continue to advocate for the right to housing and its implementation, especially for the poorest and most in need. This reflects the failure to achieve adequate housing even where a right to housing is already recognized. It should be noted that while a right to housing may be advocated, often the focus of these organizations is on a particular housing issue. This applies to organizations such as the National Law Center for Homelessness and Poverty in the United States and the International Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions.

United States

Federal housing policy consists of a combination of tax policy and subsidies. The largest federal tax program provides various incentives for homeowners with a majority of the savings going to upper-income homeowners. Beginning in 1986, tax credits have been provided for the development of housing for lower-income tenants. A variety of subsidy programs are aimed at the development of housing for low- and moderate-income tenants and homeowners. Since 1974, poor tenants have received rent subsidies allowing them to live in privately owned rental housing (Hays 2012; Schwartz 2015) (see also the chapter authored by Lawrence Vale and Yonah Freemark).

The reach of federal housing subsidy programs depends upon Congressional funding. For example, the federal standard for “affordable” housing for renters is paying no more than 30 percent of their income for rent. In 2013, the number of cost-burdened renters paying more than this particular rent-to-income maximum ratio was at a new high of 20.8 million (Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University 2015). In that year only about one of four very poor tenants eligible for rent subsidies (known as Housing Choice Vouchers) received them due to limited funding. In his book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, a case study of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Matthew Desmond argued for a universal entitlement of housing vouchers for poor tenants (Desmond 2016).

Right to Housing

The United States does not have an explicit national right to housing law that would support Desmond’s proposal. Housing experts differ on the need for a right to housing. On the one hand, Chester Hartman, then head of the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, has made the case for a right to housing. Citing the housing shortcomings in the United States, Hartman (1998, 224) declared: “I proceed from a normative, philosophical stance that asserts the wisdom and justice of such a right, as well as our society’s clear ability to achieve it.”

On the other hand, James H. Carr, then with the Fannie Mae Foundation, presented a rebuttal and alternative view.

[D]eclaring a “right to housing” and pursuing that right as the primary goal for a branch of social policy ignores the underlying causes behind concentrations of shelter poverty among certain populations and residents of certain geographic areas. As such, government programs developed to ensure the “right to housing” would encourage greater concentrations of certain populations in shelter poverty.

(Carr 1998, 248)

Currently, however, a right to housing would merely concentrate minorities and the urban and rural poor, already affected by systematic differential treatment, into a housing situation that perpetuates dependency on the government and vulnerability to shifting political tides.

(Carr 1998, 256)

Finally, Carr argued that providing publicly subsidized shelter without the beneficiaries having jobs with livable incomes would be counterproductive because the subsidized housing would undercut work incentives. Desmond, however, disagrees, arguing that the poor want to work to improve their lives beyond having adequate housing (Desmond 2016). These conflicting views represent the competing philosophies regarding governmental intervention in the housing market, a debate between right to housing advocates (e.g., Hartman and Desmond) and right to housing skeptics (e.g., Carr).

In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that there is “no constitutional guarantee of access to dwellings of a particular quality” (Lindsay v. Normet, 405 U.S. 56). Instead, it pointed to legislation as the appropriate avenue to securing housing rights. In 1949, the U.S. Congress passed a housing act that included the express goal of a “decent home and suitable living environment for every American family” (Hays 2012, 111). However, this act was aspirational only, not a mandate. Federal housing programs are generally limited in term and require periodic renewal and funding by the executive and legislative branches of government. In 1968, the Congressional housing legislation included the ambitious goal of eliminating the shortage of decent housing (including the need for low- and moderate-income housing) within a decade, with annual reports on progress to be issued by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD; Hays 2012, 111). To achieve an overall goal of 26 million housing units, Congress relied on subsidies for the construction of private housing. Over time, the housing construction programs lagged, and in 1973 HUD declared a moratorium on these construction programs.

Homelessness

Beginning in the 1980s, homelessness became a significant housing problem in the United States. Despite the creation of several federal programs to house the homeless and the expansion of shelters and transitional housing for the homeless beginning in 1987 (Schwartz 2015), homelessness has persisted. In 2015, nearly 600,000 Americans were homeless (National Alliance to End Homelessness 2016). The federal “Housing First” initiative aims at providing enough permanent supportive housing to eliminate homelessness within a decade (Schwartz 2015). This program has made progress in reducing homelessness in many cities, including that of homeless veterans (Janisse 2016). Advocacy organizations such as the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty and local housing providers have promoted efforts like these to address the problem and to establish at least a right to shelter.

In some U.S. cities such as San Francisco tent encampments of the homeless have appeared, raising issues of public health and safety (Fuller 2016). Those cities that provide more services for the homeless have found that they have become magnets for many of the homeless and have been unable to cope with their needs, for example, Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 2015, the City of Los Angeles declared a citywide emergency in the face of the escalating number of the homeless totaling 25,000. Including this number in the city, Los Angeles County had 44,000 homeless. In February 2016, the City and County governments proposed complementary plans to spend hundreds of millions to provide expanded housing and housing services for these homeless populations (Lovett 2016). On November 8, voters in the City of Los Angeles voted on a $1 million bond issue for housing for the homeless (Holland 2016).

In his 2017 federal budget President Obama proposed $11 billion over the next decade to eliminate homelessness among families and young children. HUD’s 2015 homeless count found that about 64,000 families and 123,000 children were homeless (Stewart 2016).

State and Local Governments

In addition to federal housing programs, much of the responsibility for providing and ensuring that adequate housing is available (including for the homeless) lies with local governments (aided by state and federal housing programs). Local governments regulate housing through licensing landlords, conducting code enforcement, controlling rents (if and where authorized), and enforcing landlord-tenant laws. Many also have public housing authorities, use housing trust funds to subsidize development, and require developers of large-scale residential projects to dedicate a percentage of the units to below-market-priced units (known as “inclusionary housing”) (Calavita and Mallach 2010; Schwartz 2015). Despite their best efforts, cities (and their nonprofit partners) have proven incapable of meeting the needs of all who need adequate housing. This has s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Editors’ Introduction
• Section 1 Right to Housing
• Section 2 Inequality
• Section 3 Homeownership
• Section 4 Rental Housing
• Section 5 Social Housing
• Section 6 Senior Housing
• Section 7 Gentrification
• Section 8 Suburbs
• Section 9 The Future of Housing
• Index