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Housing is not a human right. The good news is the problem in most cases is government zoning and permitting policies that drastically restrict supply and there

Housing is not a human right. The good news is the problem in most cases is government zoning and permitting policies that drastically restrict supply and there are lots of logical arguments for requiring the government to gtfo of our way in this case being close to a human right

jltsiren 2y ago
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25, Section 1: > Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. Human rights generally represent a much higher standard than the minimal rights protected by national constitutions.
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  That statement is meaningless if not backed up by money. That's why national constitutions are the way they are. They have to actually do it.
  - tossandthrow 2y ago
    It doesn't have to be funded. No law have to be funded. The mere idea that financial concerns is above law is a really new idea and not something to take for granted. The fact that central banks are divorced from the political process is just around 100 years old for the US (Federal Reserve Act).
    - snapplebobapple 2y ago
      It's not a new idea, it's one of the oldest ideas because it is a concern for property rights. Any of this style of "right" where it is promising to do something rather than not do something requires funding by definition, as the thing that it requires you to do will require resources and said resources will have to be forcefully confiscated from someone else. These types of "rights" are, by definition, coercive property transfers. it's fundamentally different than the original idea of rights (sometimes referred to as negative rights vs these positive rights) that cost nothing because they are of the form "The government will not do X". Further, I am extremely skeptical positive rights solve anything because the problem is pretty much never a need for coercive property transfer, it's almost always a need for more aggressive enforcement of negative rights to stop the governments doing stupid things that screw up markets (i.e. enforce property rights by relaxing zoning and forcing permits to be quick and painless with high likelihood of being quickly approved if they fit the relaxed zoning in this case) or market power abuse by private people/corporations which then needs more aggressive antitrust enforcement (i.e. stop collusion in the rental market by breaking up large rental trusts and/or fining the crap out of people using software to collude to raise prices for this specific example). coercive property transfer just makes things worse in this case because it doesn't fix the inability to build the needed housing stock where it is needed.
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      Of course rights can be funded. E.g. the right to legal defence: the state cannot prosecute you if you if it isn't willing to also fund someone to defend you. That's an actual right.
- bawolff 2y ago
  For those curious https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-housing/human-right-adequate-housing https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-housing/human... expands on what that means in practise. From what i read, it sounds like there is a right to housing being reasonably affordable, but its not like a right to a free house.
- Khaine 2y ago
  I appreciate the sentiment, but how can that ever be enforced? Are high house prices a violation of my human rights? Can I take the Australian Government to court for this? Where is the Human Rights Commission on this? In my mind this is the stupidity of declaring things like medical treatment, housing, etc as a 'right'. Rights stem from natural law, are universal in their application and put a limit on the actions of the Government. They do not require the action of anyone to be effective.
  - jltsiren 2y ago
    Your idea of rights sounds much like classical liberalism. Which had, at the time the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written, failed in very obvious ways. Classical liberals got some things right, but their ideas did not lead to a peaceful and prosperous society where everyone's rights would be respected. Instead, the countries where liberalism was the strongest also believed in imperialism. They divided the world among themselves and took advantage of everyone else. And when liberalism failed to deliver the promised prosperity to common people, those people turned to nationalism and communism. Which led to two destructive world wars and many other wars. When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written, the failure of liberalism was as obvious as the failure of communism was a few decades later. Liberalism was an insufficient foundation for a civilized society. Something more was needed, and the United Nations wrote up their vision of the future. Which they, as the winners of WW2, had every right to do according to the natural law. After all, nothing is more natural than the strong ruling over the weak. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a legally binding document. But it is a morally binding one. Particularly to the 48 countries, including Australia, that originally voted to adopt it. Then there is the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which is a legally binding treaty signed and ratified by 172 countries. Including Australia (but not including the US). It contains many of the same ideas about the rights to an adequate standard of living, health, education, and so on.
    - snapplebobapple 2y ago
      You appear to be mixing up a bunch of timelines: The universal declaration of human rights was drafted in 1947 and 1948 and adopted in 1948, so fascism had already spectacularly failed on the human rights front, as had communism, we just didn't know about communism's failures for a few decades because anyone who tried to tell us had their rights violated via death or gulag. Liberalism had not failed at this time (or arguably at any time. The places doing the nasty things were pretty clearly not liberal, as they pretty fundamentally don't recognize the individual and provide autonomy to the individual (as one of many reasons they weren't liberal). Instead this document is a reaction to the atrocities committed by the nazis (and would be a reaction to the atrocities committed by the communists had they been known).
- snapplebobapple 2y ago
  from my perspective that is a much lower standard because it is uncomprehending of the second order effects of any right that gives you something rather than stops others from doing something to you (commonly known as positive rights). Most notably this violates article 4 and 17 (but likely others as well) because it requires you to forcefully take from someone to be able to give that shelter to someone else. Further, this type of nonsense rarely solves the problem it is attempting to solve because it doesn't address what is almost always a market power abuse by government or powerful corporations/people (in this case mostly government getting too agressively in the way of my right to do what I want with my property via zoning and permits. The solution is relaxing zoning heavily and requiring fast approval/ low prices on permits and then letting time and people's desire to profit maximize to build out the housing stock we want and need. This requires stealing from noone, instead it requires giving the people more of their freedom back to actually solve the problem. Maybe saying it is a more restrictive and complex standard, which makes it likely to be garbage by design as it contradicts itself and leads to unexpected second and third order negative effects would be a more accurate (which is not to say constitutions are better, they also often suffer from stupid levels of complexity and contradiction, more it says positive rights are unintelligent and foolish).
- HDThoreaun 2y ago
  "universal" lmao. Did they throw that in so that I wouldnt be allowed to disagree?
djrobstep 2y ago
How much do you think supply needs to increase in Australia to bring homelessness to zero?
- andrewstuart 2y ago
  No amount of supply would fix it because the government will always keep growing the population to keep demand higher than supply. They are talking about taking Australia up to 40 million people.
  - averageRoyalty 2y ago
    ... by 2071?[1][2] Looking at the data, this doesn't seem an unreasonable YoY increase. 1. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/population-projections-australia/latest-release https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/populati... 2. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-23/how-many-people-will-be-in-your-state-in-40-years/103144308 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-23/how-many-people-will-...
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
sofixa 2y ago
> The good news is the problem in most cases is government zoning and permitting policies that drastically restrict supply and there are lots of logical arguments for requiring the government to gtfo of our way in this case being close to a human right Comparing between countries is useful. Indeed in most of the Anglosphere that seems to be the problem - an absurd focus on single family houses and decent amounts of NIMBYs. However I have two counterexamples showing it's not only a matter of zoning: First, France. There is no such ridiculous zoning policies, and in fact the state does a lot to encourage higher density and affordable developments. From having a law on the books that each relevant municipality must have a minimum % of affordable housing, often provided by them directly, to very favourable investment and tax regimes to invest in building new housing to rent at controlled prices (it one of the most popular investment vehicles in France). Paris also has sort of rent controls (you can't put out a place to rent if the rent is higher than a fixed % than the median per sq m in the same area). There are generous renters protections (your landlord can't increase your rent with more than a fixed index that tracks rent increases, and only once yearly; and they can't evict you for any reason). And there are strong regulations on what can be built in terms of quality (e.g. thermal and sound isolation are mandatory). There are many massive projects of urban redevelopment where derelict areas are redone entirely for mixed use with lots of nice housing. There is lots of investment in public transit too. And there is still an affordability/availability crisis in most of the big cities (even those without Paris' rent controls). Bulgaria, where the cities allow building of anything because it's "progress" and they get a kickback. Quality is very variable because builders don't care and inspectors look the other way with a bribe. There are literally appartement buildings with only a few metres distance. Decent density (5-10 stories usually), decent mixed use. Total lack of infrastructure investment though - little to no public transit, not enough parking/roads for the absurd "cars rule" policy adopted instead. Yet there is a housing availability and affordability crisis too. For the median worker it's unaffordable to buy, prices are more as in Western European big cities. IT workers and those in grey/black market sectors, as well as Russians parking money before the war, are fine though. So it's not as easy as zoning. It will definitely help a lot to drastically loosen it, but government getting away from it entirely won't work either and will be to the detriment of all too (cf. Bulgaria).
- snapplebobapple 2y ago

jltsiren 2y ago

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25, Section 1: > Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. Human rights generally represent a much higher standard than the minimal rights protected by national constitutions.

robertlagrant 2y ago
That statement is meaningless if not backed up by money. That's why national constitutions are the way they are. They have to actually do it.
- tossandthrow 2y ago
  It doesn't have to be funded. No law have to be funded. The mere idea that financial concerns is above law is a really new idea and not something to take for granted. The fact that central banks are divorced from the political process is just around 100 years old for the US (Federal Reserve Act).
  - snapplebobapple 2y ago
    It's not a new idea, it's one of the oldest ideas because it is a concern for property rights. Any of this style of "right" where it is promising to do something rather than not do something requires funding by definition, as the thing that it requires you to do will require resources and said resources will have to be forcefully confiscated from someone else. These types of "rights" are, by definition, coercive property transfers. it's fundamentally different than the original idea of rights (sometimes referred to as negative rights vs these positive rights) that cost nothing because they are of the form "The government will not do X". Further, I am extremely skeptical positive rights solve anything because the problem is pretty much never a need for coercive property transfer, it's almost always a need for more aggressive enforcement of negative rights to stop the governments doing stupid things that screw up markets (i.e. enforce property rights by relaxing zoning and forcing permits to be quick and painless with high likelihood of being quickly approved if they fit the relaxed zoning in this case) or market power abuse by private people/corporations which then needs more aggressive antitrust enforcement (i.e. stop collusion in the rental market by breaking up large rental trusts and/or fining the crap out of people using software to collude to raise prices for this specific example). coercive property transfer just makes things worse in this case because it doesn't fix the inability to build the needed housing stock where it is needed.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    Of course rights can be funded. E.g. the right to legal defence: the state cannot prosecute you if you if it isn't willing to also fund someone to defend you. That's an actual right.
bawolff 2y ago
For those curious https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-housing/human-right-adequate-housing https://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-housing/human... expands on what that means in practise. From what i read, it sounds like there is a right to housing being reasonably affordable, but its not like a right to a free house.
Khaine 2y ago
I appreciate the sentiment, but how can that ever be enforced? Are high house prices a violation of my human rights? Can I take the Australian Government to court for this? Where is the Human Rights Commission on this? In my mind this is the stupidity of declaring things like medical treatment, housing, etc as a 'right'. Rights stem from natural law, are universal in their application and put a limit on the actions of the Government. They do not require the action of anyone to be effective.
- jltsiren 2y ago
  Your idea of rights sounds much like classical liberalism. Which had, at the time the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written, failed in very obvious ways. Classical liberals got some things right, but their ideas did not lead to a peaceful and prosperous society where everyone's rights would be respected. Instead, the countries where liberalism was the strongest also believed in imperialism. They divided the world among themselves and took advantage of everyone else. And when liberalism failed to deliver the promised prosperity to common people, those people turned to nationalism and communism. Which led to two destructive world wars and many other wars. When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written, the failure of liberalism was as obvious as the failure of communism was a few decades later. Liberalism was an insufficient foundation for a civilized society. Something more was needed, and the United Nations wrote up their vision of the future. Which they, as the winners of WW2, had every right to do according to the natural law. After all, nothing is more natural than the strong ruling over the weak. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not a legally binding document. But it is a morally binding one. Particularly to the 48 countries, including Australia, that originally voted to adopt it. Then there is the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which is a legally binding treaty signed and ratified by 172 countries. Including Australia (but not including the US). It contains many of the same ideas about the rights to an adequate standard of living, health, education, and so on.
  - snapplebobapple 2y ago
    You appear to be mixing up a bunch of timelines: The universal declaration of human rights was drafted in 1947 and 1948 and adopted in 1948, so fascism had already spectacularly failed on the human rights front, as had communism, we just didn't know about communism's failures for a few decades because anyone who tried to tell us had their rights violated via death or gulag. Liberalism had not failed at this time (or arguably at any time. The places doing the nasty things were pretty clearly not liberal, as they pretty fundamentally don't recognize the individual and provide autonomy to the individual (as one of many reasons they weren't liberal). Instead this document is a reaction to the atrocities committed by the nazis (and would be a reaction to the atrocities committed by the communists had they been known).
snapplebobapple 2y ago
from my perspective that is a much lower standard because it is uncomprehending of the second order effects of any right that gives you something rather than stops others from doing something to you (commonly known as positive rights). Most notably this violates article 4 and 17 (but likely others as well) because it requires you to forcefully take from someone to be able to give that shelter to someone else. Further, this type of nonsense rarely solves the problem it is attempting to solve because it doesn't address what is almost always a market power abuse by government or powerful corporations/people (in this case mostly government getting too agressively in the way of my right to do what I want with my property via zoning and permits. The solution is relaxing zoning heavily and requiring fast approval/ low prices on permits and then letting time and people's desire to profit maximize to build out the housing stock we want and need. This requires stealing from noone, instead it requires giving the people more of their freedom back to actually solve the problem. Maybe saying it is a more restrictive and complex standard, which makes it likely to be garbage by design as it contradicts itself and leads to unexpected second and third order negative effects would be a more accurate (which is not to say constitutions are better, they also often suffer from stupid levels of complexity and contradiction, more it says positive rights are unintelligent and foolish).
HDThoreaun 2y ago
"universal" lmao. Did they throw that in so that I wouldnt be allowed to disagree?

djrobstep 2y ago

How much do you think supply needs to increase in Australia to bring homelessness to zero?

andrewstuart 2y ago
No amount of supply would fix it because the government will always keep growing the population to keep demand higher than supply. They are talking about taking Australia up to 40 million people.
- averageRoyalty 2y ago
  ... by 2071?[1][2] Looking at the data, this doesn't seem an unreasonable YoY increase. 1. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/population-projections-australia/latest-release https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/populati... 2. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-23/how-many-people-will-be-in-your-state-in-40-years/103144308 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-23/how-many-people-will-...
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

sofixa 2y ago

> The good news is the problem in most cases is government zoning and permitting policies that drastically restrict supply and there are lots of logical arguments for requiring the government to gtfo of our way in this case being close to a human right Comparing between countries is useful. Indeed in most of the Anglosphere that seems to be the problem - an absurd focus on single family houses and decent amounts of NIMBYs. However I have two counterexamples showing it's not only a matter of zoning: First, France. There is no such ridiculous zoning policies, and in fact the state does a lot to encourage higher density and affordable developments. From having a law on the books that each relevant municipality must have a minimum % of affordable housing, often provided by them directly, to very favourable investment and tax regimes to invest in building new housing to rent at controlled prices (it one of the most popular investment vehicles in France). Paris also has sort of rent controls (you can't put out a place to rent if the rent is higher than a fixed % than the median per sq m in the same area). There are generous renters protections (your landlord can't increase your rent with more than a fixed index that tracks rent increases, and only once yearly; and they can't evict you for any reason). And there are strong regulations on what can be built in terms of quality (e.g. thermal and sound isolation are mandatory). There are many massive projects of urban redevelopment where derelict areas are redone entirely for mixed use with lots of nice housing. There is lots of investment in public transit too. And there is still an affordability/availability crisis in most of the big cities (even those without Paris' rent controls). Bulgaria, where the cities allow building of anything because it's "progress" and they get a kickback. Quality is very variable because builders don't care and inspectors look the other way with a bribe. There are literally appartement buildings with only a few metres distance. Decent density (5-10 stories usually), decent mixed use. Total lack of infrastructure investment though - little to no public transit, not enough parking/roads for the absurd "cars rule" policy adopted instead. Yet there is a housing availability and affordability crisis too. For the median worker it's unaffordable to buy, prices are more as in Western European big cities. IT workers and those in grey/black market sectors, as well as Russians parking money before the war, are fine though. So it's not as easy as zoning. It will definitely help a lot to drastically loosen it, but government getting away from it entirely won't work either and will be to the detriment of all too (cf. Bulgaria).

snapplebobapple 2y ago