Advocates around the country, and around the world, think so, and they're making their case from Southern California to Scotland and South Africa.
With a 20-percent increase in family homelessness between 2007 and 2010 in the United States, advocates are beginning to frame their work not as an affordable housing crisis or as a homelessness crisis, but as a human rights crisis.
Chicago, Minneapolis, and Salt Lake City are just a handful of cities where local housing and homelessness advocates are securing concrete wins as they take on homelessness as part of a human rights agenda, writes Maria Foscarinis, executive director of the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty.
"Focusing on the human right to housing can help advance solutions to this country's homelessness and housing crises. Ultimately, it can help us to shift from a paradigm that treats housing as a discretionary privilege to one that treats it as a priority and a right," Foscarinis writes, citing the United Nations commitment to an "adequate standard of living" as well as international homelessness policy.
Thanks to Matthew Brian Hersh
FULL STORY: Housing Is a Human Right
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San Francisco Just Ended Single-Family Zoning
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Land Banking to Prevent Transit-Oriented Displacement in Los Angeles
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) will implement a new land banking program to mitigate gentrification and displacement around future transit lines.
San Francisco to Reconsider Inclusionary Zoning as Development Slows to a Crawl
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California Senate Committee Kills Freeway Expansion Bill
The proposed legislation would have prohibited new construction in historically underserved areas that often bear the burnt of the negative impacts of freeways.
Initiative Brings Capacity Building to Booming Rural Towns
A research and capacity building initiative based at Utah State University seeks to help fast-growing tourist meccas in the West plan for smart growth.
City of Bothell
Town of San Anselmo
Palm Beach Transportation Planning Agency (TPA)
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Harvard Graduate School of Design Executive Education
Harvard Graduate School of Design Executive Education
City of Apache Junction
City of Helena
Gallatin County, Montana
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Hand Drawing Master Plans
This course aims to provide an introduction into Urban Design Sketching focused on how to hand draw master plans using a mix of colored markers.
