EU Moves Towards Tackling Affordable Housing Crisis For All Its Member States
"Rather than a fundamental right to be guaranteed for all, housing has increasingly been considered a market to make profits through speculative acquisitions and the so-called financialization of the...
WA State Exasperated By City Council Compassion For Homeless Encampment
WA? That would NOT be Washington State (USA), but Western Australia State (nation name redundant). That august body was recently in the news for its tone-deaf response to people...
THE SHIFT: Committing To Housing As Shelter For All, Not Investment Opportunity
Leilani Farha may no longer be the UN's Special Rapporteur on Housing,To check out the Special Rapporteur's mandate, see the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights: Special...
First Voice Advocates Speak Up For Housing
Many people in Canada have experience of being homeless.It's an experience that is gradually being honoured, rather than vilified. Try: Between A Rock And A Hard Place: Remembering People...
A Handbook On Housing First From Finland
Finland is the only country where the number of people who are homeless is going down. The success has drawn a lot of international attention. Y-Foundation, a housing provider,...
Wanted: Canada’s First Official Housing Advocate
Recruitment for Canada's first Housing Advocate is underway. The deadline for applications is December 31, 2020.
The Housing Advocate's position was created as part of Canada's commitment to make housing...
New And Deadly Activist Now Calling For Homelessness Action: Winter
Worldwide, prompt government pandemic action has swept people experiencing homelessness into shelter. The effectiveness of these actions has been greeted with both praise, but also surprise. After years of...
Can Floods Of Lawsuits Prevent Homeless Camp Bulldozing?
Casual notice of commentary on legal matters leads most Canadians to believe that the slightest American disagreements inevitably result in lawsuits, compared to our more occasional, sober and civilized(?)...
Protocol Breach Undermines Support To Families Experiencing Homelessness
Imagine leaving all your local contacts behind and not having any idea of how to find help in your new community.
In England, local councils have a duty to assist...
Survivors Of Domestic Violence Win The First Battle In Their Fight To Stay Local
A group of mothers fleeing domestic violence took the council in Lambeth, England, to court. The issue? The moms’ right to be on a waiting list for social housing...
Housing: Asset Or Necessity? Disobedience May Define It, Along With The Future of Capitalism
Two homeless mothers together with children have occupied an empty house in Oakland, California. Currently, there is more housing held empty by investors speculating in Oakland than there are...
In Vancouver B.C. Affordable Housing Can Be A Doggone Shame In Every Sense
A lot of people find emotional security from 'their special baby'. We're talking about the furry kind here, cats and dogs mostly, but not exclusively.
They are important enough that...
Homeless While Working: A Growing Urban Tragedy In Advanced Societies
A widespread misconception about the nature of homelessness needs urgent correction. It is an understandable, and unfortunately highly convenient, misconception. It puts the focus on a small handful of...
UK Supreme Court Rules On ‘Intentional Homelessness’
In 2011, Terryann Samuels, a mother of four in England, was faced with a difficult decision. She could 'top up' her public rent assistance with £150 of her basic...
Just In Time For Canada Day
Very happy to report that Canadians now do enjoy a human right to adequate housing. The campaign, which affordablehousingaction.org has been faithfully covering, ended when the National Housing Strategy Act received Royal assent.
New California Candidate For State Song: Home, Home On The Streets . . .
What happens when a country binds itself with an aspirational constitution and many of the founding fathers are land and housing speculators?
One might expect that basic individual freedoms and...
Canada Squeezes Human Right To Housing Into Omnibus Budget Bill
Canada would seem to share an enthusiasm with its more populous neighbour to the south: cramming all kinds of goodies and baddies into omnibus bills.
You might think that acknowledging...
Homeless And School Association: Wisconsin’s New Normal?
Faced with low wages and unaffordable housing, people become homeless. Some have children. School districts find themselves struggling to accommodate students who are homeless. It's a predictable problem, and...
L.A. Explores ‘Boarding School’ For Entire Homeless Families
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is considering a profoundly generous and undoubtedly controversial way of fulfilling its mandate to provide education for all children and youth, regardless...
From Vancouver, BC: Housing Unaffordablity From A Human Rights Perspective
In North America, the bragging rights for "Most Disgustingly Expensive Big City to Live in" are hotly contested. A perennial frontrunner in the competition is Canada's Vancouver, long a...
Canadian Campaign To Make Housing A Human Right
Canada's national government issued a National Housing Strategy in 2017. The strategy is founded on a commitment to housing as a human right and Canada's obligations as a signatory...
Homeless In the UK? Join 170 Year-Long Wait List For Social Housing
Two UK articles in the Guardian neatly bookend the depths of an affordable crisis that is far more than the national concern of a single country.
First, the Guardian quotes Shelter,...
Portland’s Local “Right To Shelter” Couldn’t Drain A National Ocean Of Homelessness
If you build it, they will come. And they did come, more than anyone expected. In a visionary, gutsy move, Portland declared in 2015 that nobody would be turned...
Car Living Skyrockets In Seattle. Is It Affordable Housing Or Homelessness?
What significance might be attached to a January 2018 discovery that there was a huge increase in the number of Seattle's homeless found living in vehicles? Thanks to a...
Homelessness Crisis? Orange County Grand Jury To Local Governments: Pull Your Fingers Out and Cooperate!
A recent U. S. District court decision caused government consternation and dismay at several levels in Orange County California as officials scrambled frantically for weeks to mitigate a crisis...
Is San Diego On A Slippery Slope To Institutionalizing Homelessness?
"Consider the advantages of outdoor life. Settle down for a while in the fresh sea air of San Diego, California. Or stay for a lifetime. Your belongings can be...
The Affordable Community: When An Affordable Home Is Not Enough
Humans are by and large sociable animals. Or, if you prefer, sociable God's creatures. Indeed, religions are both powered and empowered by the social magnet of their communities. They...
Death On The Streets
How many homeless people spend cold nights on the streets of your community? How many have no shelter to go to? How many sleep rough because they cannot cope...
Is There a Difference Between Hostile Architecture and Torture?
If you are homeless, and cannot sleep over a heat vent, will you die? The odds are against it unless you are in a country with a frigid winter...
Legalizing Homelessness: A Step In The Right Direction? Or Institutionalizing A Disgrace.
On one side of the argument those who are forced to live a homeless way of life, and feel they have human rights, too.
On the other side, disgusted communities...
In The Affordable Housing Mines, The Panhandler Is The Canary
Emergency Alert! Deep underground, a miner's canary is suffering. The miners are at risk along with the canary! What to do?
The answer is obvious. Shoot the canary.
Say what? When...
Women Die Young In The Country Of Homelessness
No country in the world has a lower average life expectancy for women than can be found in Monroe County, upstate New York. A shocking study released by a...
