A/HRC/25/54 and a risk management and early-warning system.40 States should raise awareness among inhabitants of hazardous areas and help them to improve their living environment.41 39. Where settlements pose risks to environmental resources, like parks, coastlines, rivers, lakes and wetlands, States should explore options in consultation with affected people to protect both the environment and the tenure security and livelihoods of inhabitants. For example, participatory land readjustment and incremental upgrading of settlements along water bodies, including improved sanitation and waste disposal services, can address both concerns. The local government of Surabaya in Indonesia has taken successive measures in this direction, via the Settlement and Urban Infrastructure Strategies (SPPIP) programme, established in 2010. This programme improved the infrastructure conditions (pavements, drainage, waste-management) in the Bozem Morokrembangan region, including of households located along the riverbank areas.42 40. All potentially affected persons have the right to information about risks to health and safety or the environment, and should be afforded opportunities for active participation in the process of exploring alternatives to in situ solutions and decision-making. Any decision to resettle households should be subject to judicial review. E. Promoting the social function of property 41. The inability of the poor to access secure and well-located urban housing is often a direct result of policies that promote the commodification of land and housing to the detriment of their social function. As housing becomes increasingly unaffordable, especially in city centres, people have no choice but to resort to insecure self-help alternatives, including sleeping in public places. 42. Policies that promote the social function of property aim to ensure that land is allocated, used and regulated in a manner that serves both individual and collective needs.43 Limitations are placed on private property rights for the purpose of promoting social interests and the general welfare.44 States inherently recognize the social function of land through, inter alia, the collection of property taxes, the exercise of expropriation powers for the public good, adverse possession laws, and urban planning that designates spaces for public use and environmental protection. States should take further measures to ensure both private and public land is used optimally to give effect to its social function, including adequate housing of the urban poor. 43. Audits of unused land and housing and assessments of housing needs. An audit of unused and underutilized land, housing and buildings, both public and private, should be conducted concurrently with an assessment of the housing needs of the urban poor, including homeless persons, with the objective of matching availability with spatial needs. The assessment of current and anticipated housing needs should take into account patterns 40 41 42 43 44 14 A. Lavell, “The Lower Lempa River Valley, El Salvador: From Risk to Sustainability. Experience with a Risk Reduction and Development Project”, in G. Bankoff, et al. (eds), Mapping Vulnerability: Disasters, Development and People (Earthscan, 2003). See International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Participatory Approach for Safer Shelter Awareness (2011). “Slums and Squatters – upgrading at local level”, City of Surubaya (2013); Happy Santosa, “Environmental management in Surabaya with reference to National Agenda 21 and the social safety net programme”, Environment & Urbanization, vol. 12, No. 2 (2000), p. 181. See Leticia Osorio, The Social Function of Property and the Human Rights to Security of Tenure in Latin America with a Particular Focus on Brazil (University of Essex, 2013). See Buenos Aires Province, Law 14.449, arts. 10 and 11.