The Guardian published an article by author David Van Reybrouk in 2016, not long after the United Kingdom had voted by the slimmest of margins to leave the European Union.
In the article, Van Reybrouk argues that elections and referendums are no longer adequate as decision making processes. He contends that elections are not well-suited to resolving many of the complex and longstanding issues we are facing today. This is especially true for elected decision makers (and those who’d like to be in office), who must pay close attention to the election cycle, framing issues in ways they can get or keep themselves in office.
Ending homelessness and building a stable housing supply definitely qualifies as longstanding and complex issues. Housing programs are susceptable to the short term election-focused decision making1.
Part of the reason Van Reybrouk’s article is an interesting read is because he presents an alternative process called sortitian. At its most basic, sortitian involves the random selection of citizens to study a problem and to collectively come up with recommendations to fix it.
Although the term is new, sortitian has a long tradition as a model for public decision making, which dates back at least as far as ancient Greece. In this century, Van Reybrouk describes Ireland’s process for constitutional reform, which he praises as an example of sortitian at its best.
Sortitian has also caught the attention of the Organization For Economic Cooperation and Development2 (OECD), which has put resources to documenting and analysing 525 sortitian activities around the world starting in 1979.
The OECD’s study includes 12 sortition processes about housing and homelessness. Two were specifically intended to give voice to people who face extreme challenges including low incomes, mental health issues, or being unhoused.
One encompassed neighbourhoods in the city of Toronto. The second was undertaken for the government of South Australia. In both cases, the aim was to include the voices of people with lived experience of unstable housing and homelessness. The records for both examples indicate that the sortitians provided valuable input to larger processes for housing policy and program planning.
These articles may be of interest to decision makers and advocates that are looking for ways to open the issue of homelessness and precarious housing situations to a wide group of participants. Sortition might also be considered as a strategy to include lived experience in policy and program planning
You can read David Van Reybrouk’s article in The Guardian: Why elections are bad for democracy
The report, documenting examples of sortitions, is posted at the OECD: Community Land Trusts – A Route To Permanent And Deeply Affordable Housing
You can access the data base for the OECD study at the Sortition Foundation: Citizens’ assemblies & sortition around the world
Footnotes
- Try this story in Finland, where the future of its highly successful housing first program is at risk: Will Finland Carry Through On Its Plan To End Homelessness By 2027?
- The Organization for Economic Cooperation shares information about its activities here.
