The housing crisis has rewarded the wealthiest while those who have lost their homes are often blamed for taking on too much debt. (Photo: Pixabay)
In corporate finance, the world resembles the classic board game Monopoly, where players trade in and develop properties, demand rents and aim to bankrupt others. The players in this game are a global political and financial elite that include US President Donald Trump.
Global real estate is valued at around USD 217 trillion, representing 60% of all global assets. At a recent press conference, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, Leilani Farha, stated that “Residential real estate is valued at $USD 163 trillion or more than twice the world’s total GDP.” She added, “Imagine if that capacity was harnessed for the realization of the right to housing instead of speculation and profit.”
In presenting a new hard-hitting report on 1 March, which “focuses on the “financialization of housing” and its impact on human rights”, Farha stated that “Housing has lost its currency as a human right” and “has been financialized: valued as a commodity rather than a human dwelling.”
The right to adequate housing is recognised as a part of the right to an adequate standard of living in Article 25 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 11(1) of the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The UN defines the human right to adequate housing as “more than just four walls and a roof. It is the right of every woman, man, youth and child to gain and sustain a safe and secure home and community in which to live in peace and dignity”.
In 2015, states signed up to UN Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030, number 11 of which is the goal of sustainable cities, which includes “access for all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services and upgrade slums.” From street level, the view is very different. The housing crisis, which “has not often been considered from…