Evictions and Austerity @ the UPR

The global financial collapse in 2007–2008 made apparent where “globalization,” financial institutions and national policies failed to support citizen interests. As governments rushed to support banks and the wealthy elite, the middle class fell to the wayside, while already-poor populations plunged deeper into the cracks.

Many countries met national budget crises through imposing austerity measures that have restructured social and labor polices while favoring corporations, banks and other private entities with bailouts and other measures with public resources. In effect, these measures have imposed severe cuts within the public budget on social spending, including welfare and food programs, social housing, education and other forms of social assistance. Across Europe, unemployment rates have been increasing, subsequent disenabling people to make payments on basic needs, mortgages and rent. Resulting from this governmental omission to regulate private actors and bring them to account, and the concomitant failure to protect tenants and uphold social assistance is an incredible increase in evictions.

HIC-HLRN has joined forces with Members and partners in Europe to ensure that governments are held responsible for the current housing crisis that has resulted from austerity programs. One approach has been to submit joint reports under the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) for Italy and Spain in 2014. These reports focus on each state’s responsibility to respect, protect and fulfil human rights enshrined in the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), particularly Article 11 guaranteeing “the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living…including adequate housing…and to the continuous improvement of living conditions.” State delegations in the Human Rights Council largely ignored the human right to adequate housing in the previous UPR rounds for both countries.

Prior to the crisis, the trend across Europe was to facilitate housing access through attractive financing offers, or to be clear, debt. In Spain alone, during the housing bubble from 1997–2007, citizen debt increased from 55% to 130%. Government inertia and banking interests pushed similar policies toward home ownership in Italy; however, the larger problem for Italy is rooted in unregulated privatization and weak policies to protect tenants’ rights. Across Italy, cities have witnessed a 50% rent increase nationally. Meanwhile, in larger cities, this increase has reached 85%, with a drastic 200% increase in Rome and Milan, and some cases exceeding a 300% increase. While salaries have failed to increase at the same rate, the housing situation has plunged thousands of families to face threats of eviction due to the inability to pay rents.

Increased rents and debts, paired with privatization, social-service cuts and lack of employment opportunities have been a recipe for disaster in both Italy and Spain. Both countries have seen a drastic increase in evictions for rent or mortgage arrears; inability to make payments consists of 89% of Italy’s annual evictions since 2011, and 57% in Spain. Affordability is an indispensible element of the human right to adequate housing, and it is clear that, in Spain and Italy, as well as other countries across Europe, governments are not meeting these needs and their obligations to fulfill them.

The inability to make payments is accentuated by the lack of affordable rental and social housing options in both countries. In both Spain and Italy, housing policies tend to promote private ownership over renting. In Spain, social housing is obtainable primarily through the Vivienda de Protección Pública (publicly protected housing). This approach is rooted in making home financing more affordable for buyers through subsidized construction and renovation. In Spain, home ownership represents 85% of the total housing stock, while rentals are the lowest rate in Europe at 11%, primarily concentrated in bigger cities such as Barcelona and Madrid. Less than 2% of the housing stock is allocated as social housing. Similarly, in Italy, of the total housing stock 18% is rented to tenants and, of this portion, only about one-quarter are for social housing.

While many challenges face the social movements and citizens working toward rescinding austerity measures, their demands are legitimate and well founded. It is critical to create housing policies that meet the current situation of evictions, including increased regulation on privatization, particularly within public housing, increased tenant and lease protections, and increased subsidies for low-income groups. 

Both countries have evidenced the need for increased social/subsidized housing, but fail to make the necessary investments into available properties to implement these programs. In particular, thousands of homes across both countries remain empty/unoccupied, and social movements are demanding that these buildings be converted into housing for low-income families, consistent with property’s social function. They are calling for governments to force financial institutions and real-estate asset management companies, starting with those that have been rescued with public funds, to meet its public service obligations and to allocate their empty properties to social rental housing.

Forced evictions are codified as a “gross violation” in international human rights law. Moreover, evictions for economic reasons under these policy failures may fall into the same prohibited category. Therefore, in such eviction cases, it is critical that the state ensure that suitable alternatives and relocations are available. Human rights standards require that evictions not result in homelessness, or render individuals vulnerable to violations of other human rights. UN-CESCR’s General Comment No. 7 states that  “Where those affected are unable to provide for themselves, the State party must take all appropriate measures, to the maximum of its available resources, to ensure that adequate alternative housing, resettlement or access to productive land, as the case may be, is available.”

Both UPR reports seek to compel state authorities and the international community to address the ongoing crisis as a matter of their treaty-bound human rights obligations, mitigating the particular affect on realizing the human right to adequate housing. HIC-HLRN will continue to work with partners in Europe to contribute reports in international and regional forums to further push these issues.

For more analysis on the situation of housing and austerity in Europe, see the publication “Housing in Europe: Time to Evict the Crisis” edited by HIC-member AITEC.

For UPR stakeholder report deadlines and other information see: OHCHR UPR and www.upr-info.org, for any other questions, please contact us at hlrn@hlrn.org.