Housing Is A Human Right

Affordable, secure and appropriate housing is a right, not a privilege, to all Australians. I'm proposing a campaign to make housing an issue - to get people motivated about it - to have safe, affordable and appropriate housing recognized as a right in Australia. Housing is recognized by many declarations as a right. However, the struggle here is to turn rights into realities. Many declarations of Rights hold housing in high esteem. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, states that "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing of himself and his family, including ... housing." Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recognizes " ... the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing..." This same Covenant of Rights also states that "State Parties will take appropriate steps to ensure the realization of this right."

In Vienna, 1993, The World Conference on Human Rights reaffirmed the right of " ...every human being to an adequate standard of living." Section 31 of the Program of Action of the World Conference on Human Rights recognizes " ... the rights of everyone to a standard of living adequate for their health and wellbeing, including food and medical care, housing and the necessary social services." According to Human Rights Commissioner, Chris Sidoti's address at the National Conference on Homelessness (1996), an essential element to human survival with dignity is adequate housing. Sidoti reminds us that recent pledges of the United Nations Economic and Social Council reaffirmed "... the right of every man, woman and child to a safe and secure place to live in peace and dignity." This, argues Sidoti, should serve as the framework upon which housing issues and homelessness are approached in Australia.

The right to housing is recognized in Australia, by documents such as Australia's National Action plan on Human Rights. The Plan states that all Australians should have access to adequate, appropriate and affordable housing. It stands as a commitment to improving the housing conditions of Australian Citizens. However, I t remains clear that there is considerable room for improvement. It is clear to see that Australia is far off from abiding by this Plan. Evidence is seen in reports published by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) as well as the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), among others.

According to the ABS Australian Housing Survey -- Housing Characteristics, Costs and Conditions, 1999, the majority of the 7.2 million households surveyed across Australia in 1999 owned their current home. 27% of the 7.2 million households were renting. While 63% of 7.2 million households who own their own home might be large, there are still a lot of households that don't; which are in either private renters or renting under a housing authority landlord. (see Appendix 1). And there are still a lot of people who don't have a house at all.

So what exactly is affordable, secure and appropriate housing. According to the Australian Local Government Association's "Planning and Housing Article" from the AHURI, affordable housing refers to "housing for low and moderate income households seeking home ownership and rental housing opportunities at a cost which generally does not exceed 30% of their income."

The AHURI released in February 2006, the report "Housing Affordability, occupation and Location in Australian Cities and Regions." The key findings of this report were:

* High rates of housing stress are found among lower income working households.

* Hospitality workers experience the highest incidence of housing stress.

* Sales assistants record the greatest numbers in stress.

* Public sector occupations such as police or teachers face below average incidence of affordability problems.

* Affordability problems are driven primarily by low incomes rather than occupation per se.

* Relatively high rates of both residential and employment self-containment in regions in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane/Gold Coast.

* Increases in self-containment likely to be associated with growth of a suburban service-based economy with jobs following people.

* Commuting patterns revealed that only some occupations (such as computing professionals) had an increased proportion of workers facing long commutes - because they chose to live further out (where they could afford to buy) and their work was