Housing means human right: UN expert

Human rights do not mean anything if people do not have a home where to claim their rights, a UN expert said Wednesday at the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development.

At the conference, or Habitat III, Leilani Farha, the UN's special rapporteur on housing, said "the first step is that all levels of government walk away from here and begin to think about establishing their own, local housing strategy...one based on human rights."

Farha's statement also took aim at a lack of measures to cater to homeless people around the world.

She said that millions of people are left without a home or forced to live in intolerable conditions, adding that this situation also impacted on the most developed countries.

The UN estimated around 1.6 billion people live in informal housing globally. Yet Farha said that these people are not given the opportunity to find solutions to their problem.

"I have heard the homeless described as vermin, as cockroaches, those living in informal settlements referred to as illegal, as encroachers and occupiers," she said.

"We want to challenge the...understanding of who counts and who doesn' t and dominant perceptions of who cities are for," continued the UN special rapporteur.

Finally, she called on all governments to do more, adding that the New Urban Agenda, a flagship document of the Habitat III conference, should not prioritize housing policies, the main goal of which is to spur economic growth. Endi