A/69/274 16. The evidence that is available suggests that widespread homelessness and inadequate housing persist and may in fact be on the rise. The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) has documented that the number of people living in slums has steadily increased over the past few d ecades, from approximately 650 million in 1990 to 863 million in 2012. According to this information, slums are characterized by severe overcrowding, a lack of basic services, including water and sanitation, and housing units that fail to protect against inclement weather and otherwise preventable diseases. The proportion of people living in such conditions is considerably higher in such regions as sub-Saharan Africa (62 per cent) and South Asia (35 per cent), compared with Latin America and the Caribbean (24 per cent) and North Africa (13 per cent). 7 17. Widespread homelessness and inadequate housing are not restricted to States with struggling economies. As pointed out by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in its general comment No. 4, significant problems of homelessness and inadequate housing also exist in some of the most economically developed societies, an observation mirrored by Miloon Kothari in his 2005 report on homelessness (E/CN.4/2005/48). The Special Rapporteur is concerned that the spectre of widespread and, in many cases, increasing homelessness in the most developed countries and countries suffering from grossly unequal distribution of wealth suggests a serious dissonance between prevailing models of economic development and the realization of the right to adequate housing that is global in scope. 18. The consequences of inadequate housing and homelessness are severe, with implications for almost every other human right, including the rights to health, education, protection of the family, social security, work and , in many cases, life. Malaria, cholera, dengue fever and many other diseases that continue to ravage the poor in tropical countries are closely linked to poor housin g conditions, as are tuberculosis, pneumonia and many other illnesses affecting those who are homeless in northern climates. Yet, despite the severity of the consequences and the fundamental human rights that are involved, homelessness and inadequate housing are still often seen as the preserve of socioeconomic policy and as insulated from the kind of legal human rights accountability that is applied to government policies affecting other human rights. Even when housing is recognized as a human right, how it should be implemented is not always clear to States and other stakeholders. 19. The growing gap between the norms and standards that have been developed internationally and the realities of systemic homelessness, substandard housing conditions, unaffordable rentals and lack of access to adequate housing suggests to the Special Rapporteur a crisis of commitment to or understanding of effective implementation of the right to adequate housing. In this light, the Special Rapporteur considers it imperative for her work that concerted effort and emphasis be placed on how human rights norms related to housing can be transformed into domestic law and policy and made more effective in addressing the human rights crisis of homelessness and inadequate housing that continues to exist in many countries around the world. __________________ 7 6/20 United Nations, The Millennium Development Goals Report 2014, target 7.D. 14-58890