Housing
Housing is a Human Right Project
According to international law, everyone has the right to adequate housing. This means everyone has the right to housing that is safe, secure, affordable, accessible and appropriate and to live there in peace and dignity.
Australia is bound by international human rights treaties to ‘respect, protect and fulfil’ the right to adequate housing. Federal, state and territory governments share these responsibilities. Yet no Australian government has properly implemented them. The Human Right to Housing outlines how housing rights legislation could be introduced in Australia.
In 2004, VCOSS hosted the Housing is a Human Right Housing Rights Charter Project to engage Victorians who had experienced housing rights violations in a process towards developing a Charter of Housing Rights for Victoria. Copies of the Charter in poster format are available free from VCOSS - call if you would like one. The responses of the project participants also formed the basis of the publication Little Piece of Heaven, thoughts from Victorians on housing as a human right.
Following the Charter Project VCOSS hosted the Victorian Housing Rights Tribunal Project. The Housing Rights Tribunal was an opportunity for those people who have not had their right to adequate housing met to speak about their experiences in a public forum. Testimonies and recommendations from the Tribunal were published in the report Close to Home: the Victorian Housing Rights Tribunal and submitted to state and federal politicians, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
The Housing is a Human Right projects were joint initiatives of VCOSS, Shelter Victoria, Women's Housing Ltd and the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions Asia-Pacific Program.
Since the Housing is a Human Right project the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Housing, Mr. Miloon Kothari has visited Australia and written a report criticising Australian Governments for inadequate action on housing, particularly in Indigenous communities. To be involved in lobbying Governments around this report contact Caroline Adler at PILCH Homeless Persons' Legal Clinic on hplc.policy@vicbar.com.au.