Public Comment

Mr. Martinot in his article Housing as a Human Right states that housing is a human right and "homeless people in the US makes this country a mass violator of human rights.” Unfortunately, the United States, though a signatory to several international human rights conventions, has not ratified any convention that would make the right to adequate housing enforceable; and the United States does not explicitly recognize a right to adequate housing in its Constitution or in federal law.  

While it is true that the United States does not explicitly recognize the right to adequate housing, elements of the right are manifested in various federal, state, and local laws and programs. Any protections of this right, or programs to support this right, are important. However, this ad hoc approach to the right to housing does not comply with the international legal standards and obviously has serious shortfalls. 

Instead of a right to housing, we should at the minimum have a goal to ensure adequate housing for all of our citizens, which requires monitoring, measuring, and policy planning—to the best of the governments' abilities given their particular situation. 

As far as raiding homeless encampments, I would point to the case of Cobine v. City of Eureka where an Oakland federal court judge enjoined the City of Eureka from removing eleven homeless individuals and their belongings from their encampment on the Eureka waterfront until the city identifies housing for the eleven and provides assurances that the homeless plaintiffs' possessions will be stored and accounted for. This raises the question as to what constitutes “adequate housing.” Is a temporary shelter considered adequate housing?  

A corollary must be that cities cannot enact restrictions on homeless encampments except to maintain hygiene, safety, and lawful conditions. As homeless encampments are here to stay at least for the foreseeable future, local governments may have to provide portable toilets, trash bins, trash, trash removal, other amenities to make the encampments more livable, and enforce laws preventing blocking of streets, sidewalks, and entrances to businesses.