Housing is an essential human right. Yet decades of dramatically rising housing prices alongside stagnant wages have increased housing insecurity and homelessness for people everywhere. Under economic globalization, corporate actors extract increasing profits from people who rely on cities as places to live. Corporate investment in urban residential properties has driven up housing costs, fueling evictions and increasing the number of unhoused people. Average rents in large cities now absorb more than half of monthly household incomes. To compound the problem, high levels of student debt mean that many young people struggle to afford decent rental housing, with dim prospects for future homeownership, particularly for Black residents and other people of color. This complex, multi-dimensional crisis has dramatic negative impacts on cities.
Views from the city level
Dayton, Ohio, has an estimated deficit of 18,300 affordable housing units and has seen an alarming 18% increase in homelessness in recent years. Yet, a recent city ordinance has criminalized groups that distribute food to unhoused residents without first obtaining a permit. Here and elsewhere in Ohio, unhoused people are prohibited from sleeping outside, even when no shelter is available. Where shelters do exist, conditions are often inhumane, compromising dignity and privacy.
Chattanooga, Tennessee, successfully reduced homelessness by 49% between 2023 and 2024, yet approximately 27% of households remain cost-burdened and housing insecure. In the past decade, over 1,000 housing units were demolished, displacing the most vulnerable families. Hundreds of people sit on waiting lists for Section 8 Housing Vouchers, but market conditions mean that only about 30% of recipients will secure housing. Despite Chattanooga’s 2023 Housing Action Plan, the city could still face a shortfall of 7,000 affordable housing units by 2030. These conditions are mirrored in Pittsburgh and other cities throughout the United States—this situation is not delimited by geographical boundaries.
Across cities, disinvestment and the destruction of public housing combine with market-driven approaches to drive up housing costs and increase housing insecurity. Gentrification and private investment increase home values while pricing out lower-income residents. The greatest harms are felt by single mothers, Black Americans, youth, and other vulnerable groups. Policies to expand affordability through subsidies and tax breaks to private developers do little to reduce rents or meet the demand for long-term affordability.
The right to housing in the United States
The right to housing under international human rights law is “the right to live somewhere in security, peace, and dignity, and should be ensured to all persons, irrespective of income or access to economic resources.” It recognizes housing as a social good essential to all, rather than a commodity and a means for wealth accumulation. It is not a right to free housing, but it requires the government to take steps to ensure that everyone can house themselves with dignity.
This housing must be “adequate,” fulfilling seven dimensions set out by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: accessibility, affordability, availability of services, habitability, location, and cultural adequacy.
Although the United States has not recognized housing as a legal right and instead emphasizes market strategies, movements at the state and local levels are demanding the right to housing. Additionally, in ratifying the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the United States has recognized the need to ensure equality in housing.
The criminalization of homelessness
Nevertheless, recent developments have eroded federal protections for those unable to secure housing. In Grants Pass v. Johnson, the US Supreme Court held that laws punishing sleeping in public do not violate the Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, even when no shelters are available. This decision effectively turns people who lack access to housing into criminals. As Justice Sotomayor recognized in the dissent, arresting and fining “people with no access to shelter … punishes them for being homeless” and “leaves the most vulnerable in our society with an impossible choice: Either stay awake or be arrested.” She considered this “unconscionable and unconstitutional.”
Criminalizing life-sustaining activity also violates international human rights law. Human rights bodies have consistently found that punishing homelessness and involuntary acts of survival constitutes cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. The UN Human Rights Committee specifically called upon the US government to: “[a]bolish laws and policies criminalizing homelessness at all levels” and to “[i]ntensify efforts to find solutions … including by redirecting funding from criminal justice responses towards adequate housing and shelter programmes.”
Criminalizing homelessness is ineffective and counterproductive. It does nothing to address the conditions that force people out of their homes while simultaneously making it much harder for them to find stable housing. It disrupts access to essential services and results in unpayable fines, jail time, and criminal records that further impede people’s employment and housing prospects. Moreover, criminalization is expensive, costing two to three times more than would the provision of affordable housing.
Cities advancing the human right to housing
While Grants Pass authorized localities across the United States to criminalize homelessness, some cities have instead advanced meaningful responses to homelessness and housing insecurity. Philadelphia introduced a resolution condemning the Grants Pass decision and reaffirming housing as a human right. Cities play a critical role in addressing the root causes of homelessness and expanding access to affordable housing. To assist governments, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing has developed guidelines for the implementation of the right to adequate housing. Housing advocates in Pittsburgh used these guidelines to guide community conversations and shape a human rights–based housing strategy, uniting a city-wide coalition promoting the right to housing on multiple fronts.
Across the country, renters are organizing. Leaders in Kansas City helped launch a national Tenant Union Federation. Dayton tenant organizers have helped broaden public support for tenant rights through the Facing Eviction Project, which uses storytelling to combat the dehumanization of those facing homelessness and eviction. Many cities have hosted the traveling National Exhibit on Eviction.
Advocacy has led to the increasing enactment of local “right to counsel laws” to ensure legal representation for those facing eviction. At least nineteen cities, two counties, and five states now recognize the right to counsel, and cities like Pittsburgh are joining in. In New York City, between 72 and 93% of represented renters facing eviction have remained in their homes, and eviction rates have decreased by 26%. Additionally, tenant advocates in Louisville, Kentucky, helped pass an anti-displacement law and implementation tool that channels public funds towards developments protecting existing residents from neighborhood gentrification.
Other cities have enacted “Homeless Bills of Rights” that protect unhoused people. In Traverse, Michigan, this includes guarantees “to basic requirements for sustaining life, including shelter, sanitation, medical care, clothing and food.” In Chattanooga, a coordinated entry system helps unhoused individuals navigate available resources more effectively.
Housing rights advocates have exposed the high costs and limited effectiveness of prevailing housing policies and expanded support for non-market housing options. This includes Dayton’s affordable housing fund and the development of social housing, community land trusts, and cooperative housing. Former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing Leilani Farha supports such efforts through the Shift Cities initiative, which fosters urban development that is rooted in human rights law, helping cities and communities strengthen their ability to combat powerful market players. Building upon these promising initiatives, the Human Rights Cities Alliance promotes cross-city exchanges and cooperative efforts to help make the human right to housing a reality for all.
This article was written by Tara Campbell, Tamar Ezer, Robert Robinson, Jackie Smith, and the Human Rights Cities Alliance writers network. It is part of a series in partnership with the Human Rights Cities Alliance. See other articles in this series here.