Rights-Based Housing for Refugees
October 24, 2022 — The Big Picture
This year, for the first time ever, the number of people forcibly displaced from their homes passed the 100 million mark.
Whether fleeing political unrest, persecution, or forced to relocate due to climate change, migrants often struggle to find housing in the places they find refuge due to increasingly inaccessible and unaffordable housing markets.
Currently, a gap exists between government commitments to human-rights law, including the right to adequate housing, and the deployment of effective policies and programs to shelter those most at risk. Additionally, efforts to resettle and integrate migrants often work in isolation from the housing sector. So how can the urban community work together to ensure housing security for a surge in newcomers?
In this issue, we bring together the perspectives of various actors involved in the resettlement and integration of refugees to advance progressive policies, programs, and designs that ensure all individuals are housed safely and with dignity.
Seeking Home: Afghan Resettlement Demonstrate Barriers to Affordable Housing and Potential Solutions
By Hannah Presser and Chuni Lu, The International Rescue Committee
Why Cities are Best Placed to Provide Homes for Refugees: The Medellín Model
By Samer Saliba and Helen Elizabeth Yu, The Mayors Migration Council
As Skyrocketing Rents Leave Refugees with Nowhere to Go, The Human Right to Housing is Needed More than Ever
By Kirsten McRae, The Shift
Cities Have the Duty to Act on the Human Right to Housing – And the Tools to Do It, Too
By Elizabeth McIsaac, Maytree
Unsheltered Homelessness – America’s Own Refugee Crisis
By Amy King, Pallet
Fostering An Innovative Ecosystem for Inclusive Community Building with Refugee Citizens
By Jan Braat and Niene Oepkes, Municipality of Utrecht
To engage further in this topic, we recommend reading:
- Taking Action: How to Transform the Reality of Migrants? By La Maison de l’innovation sociale
- Building a Bed for the Night: The Parisian “Yellow Bubble” and the Politics of Humanitarian Architecture By Tom Scott-Smith
- The role of local political leadership in the reception of forced migrants: evidence from Greece By Tihomir Sabchev (2021) Territory, Politics, Governance, 10(3): 306-326.