Issues Home About Contact Us Issue 29 - September 2023 عربى
Terminology Corner
Adequate housing

Living conditions that the State must respect, protect and fulfill such that integrates the following in elements and entitlements:

  • legal security of tenure,
  • reasonable access to public goods and services,
  • reasonable access to environmental goods and services,
  • affordability at a level that does not threaten other basic needs (usually meaning a cost of no more than 30% of household income spent on housing, maintenance and services),
  • habitability, with sound structure; adequate space, lighting and ventilation; a clean and healthy environment; and corresponding with human needs for physical health and safety;
  • physical accessibility, particularly for those with special physical or mobility constraints;
  • a location that is safe, reasonably accessible to work and economic resources, services and community;
  • cultural adequacy, such that corresponds with custom and practice that ensures participation in cultural life.

 

Adequate housing also embodies the congruent human rights of:

  • participation, freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly;
  • education, information, capability and capacity building;
  • displaced persons’ rights to reparation (i.e., restitution, return, resettlement, rehabilitation, compensation and pledge of nonrepetition); refugee rights to nonrefoulement (the prohibition against coerced return), and freedom of movement; and
  • security of person and privacy, including protection of the family and freedom from domestic violence.


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