"The right to housing" is a phrase that often raises eyebrows, but why? Why is it obvious that the state must provide education for every child, but not that it must ensure that all children have a roof over their heads? Why is it easier to understand that health is a human right, and that therefore medical attention and medicines must be ensured for those without means, than to understand that adequate housing should also be ensured for those who can't afford to buy or rent in the private market?
In recent years, state housing policies have changed beyond recognition, with the dominant trend being to shirk responsibility and privatize. In the absence of concrete laws and transparent procedures protecting the right to housing, the authorities are only required to follow vague policies that are subject to frequent change without public critique or judicial review. As a result, more and more people find themselves without adequate housing.
In light of this situation, the state must face the current crisis and ensure that all members of society, especially those most in need, can realize their right to adequate shelter.
In a recent report entitled "Real Estate or Rights: Housing Rights and Government Policy in Israel," the Association for Civil Rights in Israel found that the state is violating the right to adequate housing on several fronts.
TO BEGIN, although the state encourages private ownership of property, it evades its responsibility to help households seek assistance. The state stopped giving grants to help in the purchase of apartments, and significantly lowered its mortgage subsidies. In addition, after completely privatizing the mortgage market, the state has not yet implemented protections such as obligatory mortgage insurance to prevent foreclosure. As a result, thousands are evicted from their homes each year.
With more families unable to buy apartments, rental has become the only option. Yet the shortage of rental apartments has led to steep and frequent rises in the cost of rent. As a result, the disadvantaged must change apartments frequently or channel an ever-increasing portion of their income to rent rather than to other critical needs such as food, medication and clothing.
At the same time, the country is one of the only states in the developed world not to intervene in the terms of rental contracts, or institute regulations such as rent control for long-term tenants. The lack of tenant protection laws provides fertile ground for owners to violate their tenants' rights, such as taking unreasonably high security deposits, demanding intrusive and unnecessary documentation from potential tenants and not making urgent repairs.
Instead of boosting state aid to disadvantaged families, the government's provision of housing assistance has decreased. Public housing - apartments leased by the state at subsidized prices - is disappearing. As of 2007, only 1,628 remained for 50,000 eligible applicants.
To replace public housing, the state has been providing rental subsidies, but without properly assessing the implications. Not taken into consideration, for example, is the effect of higher rental prices on those who receive payments from the Housing Ministry that are adjusted only every few years, or discrimination in the rental market.
AMONG ALL these grave trends, the housing crisis is most acute in the Arab sector. Essentially, Arab residents are caught in a perpetual catch-22. City plans for Arab towns do not exist, or do not meet the basic housing needs of the local population, and therefore construction permits cannot be issued. In the absence of building permits, the state regularly demolishes homes built illegally, leaving many families without a place to live.
To prevent the housing crisis from deteriorating even further, the state must take steps to safeguard the right to housing of all its citizens and residents. It must increase the allocation of resources to all forms of housing assistance. It must develop comprehensive and fair housing policies for the Arab population. In addition, it must ensure that affordable units be built as part of the many new housing projects underway.
The government and Knesset, in cooperation with the public, must develop protections enshrined in law which are comprehensive, multiyear, transparent and clear, based on the principles of human rights and equality.
Yet this process can only begin once the state recognizes adequate housing as a basic human right and not as a commodity, and understands its duty to safeguard this right as an obligation and not a humanitarian gesture.
The writer is an attorney at the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
