A/HRC/31/54 B. Criminalization of homelessness 23. National and local laws often make homeless people into lawbreakers, rather than protecting their rights. Laws are created to render homeless people invisible, to displace them from land or housing and destroy their makeshift shelters. In many places punitive measures such as fines or incarceration are imposed for activities linked to basic survival, including constructing any kind of shelter out of cardboard.8 Laws enable authorities to “rescue” street-connected children, depriving them of their liberty without due process or respect for the social networks upon which they rely. 24. Such laws are often framed under the guise of public health and safety but, in reality, the aim is to “beautify” an area for the promotion of tourism and business or to increase property values. Examples are countless: in Zimbabwe, an operation to “sweep out the rubbish” through demolitions of shanty towns in 2005 left up to 1.5 million people homeless in the middle of the winter. 9 In June 2014, the Mayor of Honolulu introduced new measures to crack down on homelessness because tourists want to see “their paradise, not homeless people sleeping”. In Medellín, Colombia, during the World Urban Forum, the homeless population was transported outside of the city.10 In Australia, “move on” laws permit authorities to “disperse” homeless people “where a person’s mere presence could cause anxiety to another person or interfere with another’s ‘reasonable enjoyment’ of the space”.11 C. Discrimination in access to land and housing 25. The favouring of profit over people’s human rights through the unequal allocation of land, property, housing and related services in cities is a major driver of homelessness. Unregulated or underregulated financial and other market forces, and unfettered land and property speculation resulting in escalating land values, all contribute to the inequality of wealth distribution and homelessness. These systemic inequalities are compounded by direct discrimination against people who are poor, often pushing them to precarious housing conditions, including into informal settlements or on occupied land, and ultimately into homelessness. Many municipalities use planning and zoning laws or regulations to prevent construction of shelters or affordable housing in their communities. Homeless people are often denied opportunities to live in central locations; instead, they are compelled to live in remote, isolated and poorly serviced areas where there are no jobs. 26. Dichotomies of legal/illegal, formal/informal and deserving/undeserving applied in the global South parallel the criminalization of homelessness in northern countries. The urban poor are made “illegal” and “encroachers” by the denial of fair access to land and legal status or title. People who have been rendered homeless in urban centres are relocated 8 9 10 11 National Coalition for the Homeless, Share No More: The Criminalization of Efforts to Feed People in Need (October 2014), available from http://nationalhomeless.org/wpcontent/uploads/2014/10/Food-Sharing2014.pdf. Owen Dyer, “Zimbabwean clearance policy leaves 1.5 million people homeless”, British Medical Journal, vol. 331, No. 7509, p. 130 (2005). Greg Scruggs, “Medellin Opens Its Changing Streets to the World Urban Forum”, available from https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/medellin-opens-its-changing-streets-to-the-world-urban-forum. Response to the questionnaire from the Australian Human Rights Commission. 7