The Mercy Foundation believes that housing should be considered first and foremost as a human right. All us have the right to live in peace, dignity and security. Governments have neglected their fundamental obligation to realise everyone’s human right to housing. Without safe and secure housing, all other rights are at risk.
Kevin Bell, a former justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria, recently wrote an article about the right to housing. He argues that a legislative, rights-based national housing strategy is needed to realise the right to housing. He writes that:
We are experiencing not only a socio-economic disaster. It is a human rights disaster. Decent housing is a pillar of the whole system of human rights. When the right to a decent home is put at risk or violated on a large scale, as it now is, this impacts a great many other rights. These other rights potentially include the right life, the right to health including mental health, the right to personal inviolability including the right of women to be safe in their own home, the right to be free of discrimination, the right to work a reasonable distance from home, and the right to be free of the many gross human rights violations that are associated with poverty, inequality of wealth, social exclusion and homelessness.
Addressing Australia’s housing and homelessness crisis will take strong leadership, political will, commitment and broad community support.
