In America, if a human right isn’t enshrined to the U.S. Constitution, there’s a tendency to think it can’t possibly exist in any meaningful way. But times change everything. For example, the 2nd Amendment, which guarantees the right to bear arms in a well ordered militia, has been transformed into a mechanism for casual gun ownership, making possible mass murder in grade schools. Not quite what was originally intended.
And who is to say what a constitutional right to adequate housing might mean today, if the framers of the constitution had imagined the need for such a right to be enshrined? Today, it might mean only a right to erect a ripstop nylon tent to live in, at least until a local authority does a legal sweep and trashes that housing . . . over and over again.
Fortunately, America is a common law country. The foundation of its legal system enshrines human rights as well as responsibilities that have been codified by judges and juries over centuries stretching back to times far earlier than the American Revolution.
Human rights have been tested and refined and continue to be invented, eroded, cancelled, reconstituted and enforced in myriad ways. They provide the country with its current array of protections and responsibilities for even the most downtrodden.
Much of this legal structure is reflected in other common law countries, and the U.S. experience can provide insights into housing rights and protections in those countries as well1.
Such laws are evolving (and, as well, may be are experiencing legal threats) even as Seattle University School of Law Professor Sara Rankin shares her thoughts on what “the current legal framework is for cities addressing homelessness.”
You can listen to Professor Rankin’s thoughts, or read them at OPB: Cities continue to pass homeless camping ordinances
Her final words bear particular impact:
“We all want to end homelessness. So we have to move beyond what divides us and really see ourselves as members of the same team and that means if we really are members of that same team, that want homelessness to get better, the only important question is what’s the most effective way to do it?”
Footnotes
- If common law rights and protections are of interest, you can also try: Challenging Canada’s Denial Of Health Care: A Path To Housing Rights?
