Understanding the Human Rights Issue of Homelessness

Homeless is a word that refers to people without a permanent place to sleep. There are many reasons why people become homeless. These include unemployment, a lack of affordable housing, and a number of different health problems. Homelessness is a serious human rights issue that has devastating and often permanent effects on people’s lives.

People who are unsheltered or “street homeless” are those who sleep outside in public places such as encampments, parks and other open spaces, or on sidewalks and in overcrowded buildings. They may use stairwells, subway tunnels, or abandoned cars as shelters. Many street homeless people are single adults and many are women and children. People who are homeless are at high risk of suffering from mental illness, substance abuse, and physical injury. These people can be difficult to reach and are often excluded from services.

A person is considered sheltered homeless if they are staying in a supervised, publicly or privately operated facility designed to provide temporary living arrangements such as hotels and motels, “congregate” (group) shelters, and transitional housing. These facilities are usually operated by governmental entities, nonprofit organizations, or faith-based communities. Some states also have a system of shelters funded by local government.

It is not uncommon to see the presence of homeless people in cities and towns across America, especially during warm weather months, with tents and tarps covering blocks of street and park land. These are the most visible members of a group of people whose needs far exceed the resources available to meet them.

The most comprehensive way to understand the problem is to study its causes from a human rights perspective. These include a lack of affordable housing, speculation and privatization of civic services, and urban gentrification that pushes low-income families into precarious situations. In addition, longstanding structural racism means that people of color are disproportionately overrepresented among homeless populations.

There is a growing body of research on the subject, with a special focus on subpopulations such as homeless families and homeless people with disabilities. In particular, there has been much work on the relationship between domestic violence and homelessness.

States must ensure that all persons have access to housing and basic services in order to meet their human rights obligations under international law. This means that they must put in place measures to prevent and eliminate homelessness as a matter of urgency. It also means that they must spend the maximum amount of public funds necessary to fulfill this obligation. The UN Commission on Human Rights has produced a number of reports on the topic of homelessness that can be read and downloaded in all six UN languages.