Aug 27 2010
Housing Orgs Criticize US Self-Evaluation on Human Rights
Organizations nationwide are responding to a report on Human Rights that the United States submitted to the UN earlier this year, but just released publicly on August 23rd. All 192 member states of the United Nations are tasked with submitting this self-evaluation, called the Universal Periodic Review, to the UN Human Rights Council every four years. The UN Human Rights Council was created in March of 2006. The report requires each nation to identify both its perceived strengths and weaknesses in all areas of human rights. The participants are then expected to attend a hearing where 47 member nations review their submitted report. The US will attend its first review on November 5th of this year. In its first report the US addressed a wide range of issues, from race and gender, freedom of speech and national security, to housing and education. The government conceded that there was room for improvement in many areas. For example, in addressing issues of racial inequality the report noted that the current foreclosure crisis has disproportionately affected communities of color, and it credits predatory and discriminatory lending practices as being partly to blame. However, the US Human Rights Network, a group comprised of civil and human rights organizations, said in a press release that the report “falls short of acknowledging the persistent infringements of human rights in the U.S., and the corrective measures touted in the report do not go far enough to guarantee a timely and thorough fix.” Individual member organizations have also released evaluations and recommendations pertaining to their areas of focus. One such member organization is the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, which calls on the United States to affirm housing as a human right, and proposes specific changes in policy to address the present housing crisis.
GUEST: Eric Tars, Human Rights Program Director and Children & Youth Staff Attorney with the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty
Find out more at www.nlchp.org.
One Response to “Housing Orgs Criticize US Self-Evaluation on Human Rights”
Even though the government has allocated money for housing, how do you get local government to do the right thing for housing homeless people. Many cities have this mentality of ” not in my back yard. Much of the money is going to higher paid salaries verses housing.