Housing, land and property
Individuals affected by humanitarian emergencies increasingly live in urban areas, informal settlements and collective centres,rather than in camps or planned settlements. Humanitarian actors need to consider the challenges and opportunities that thisevolution presents for displaced persons with disabilities.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognized in 1948 that adequate housing is part of the right to an adequate standardof living. Article 25(1) states that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-beingof himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care and necessary social services”. The InternationalCovenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) also recognized the right to adequate housing, which is understoodto include legal security of tenure; the availability of services, materials, facilities and infrastructure; affordability;habitability; accessibility; location; and cultural adequacy.
The right to property is understood as the right to enjoy one's house, land and other property possessions without interferenceor discrimination. In a humanitarian context, realization of this right may involve safeguarding property and possessionsthat have been left behind by people fleeing conflict or natural hazard from looting, destruction, or arbitrary or illegalappropriation, occupation or use.
Disputes over housing, land and property (HLP) are common in humanitarian contexts due to secondary occupation, loss of ownershipdocuments, illegal or forced sales, insecurity of tenure, unequal distribution of land, and ongoing grievances over land andproperty.
HLP-related risks and impacts
- Some persons with disabilities face multiple forms of discrimination with regard to housing. Displaced persons with disabilities may face discrimination due to their disability as well as racism and xenophobia; and may simultaneously lose vital coping mechanisms and support structures during flight. Others are unable to claim access to housing because they have lost essential documentation, or cannot challenge discriminatory rental practices because they lack legal status. As a result, displaced persons with disabilities may lack accommodation, may be unable to rent adequate accommodation, may be forced to live in insecure and unsafe conditions, and may be vulnerable to eviction.
- Multiple and intersecting discrimination is experienced by women with disabilities, who face additional gender-related barriers that impede them from exercising HLP rights. In particular, widowed, abandoned or divorced women may only be able to own property or acquire access to property through male relatives. Women with disabilities who are forced to live in insecure housing are also at higher risk of violence, including sexual violence.
- Persons with disabilities are often denied the right to choose where and with whom they live, either by direct discrimination or de facto removal of choice. Women are deprived of effective choice, for instance, if they lack access to transport and other services, lack information, or live in extreme poverty.
- Some persons with disabilities are placed involuntarily in institutions or are unable to leave the institutions in which they have been placed. Both situations deprive them of their right to choose independently where they live. This risk is particularly common for persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities.
- Forced institutionalization often occurs as an indirect result of other failures to respect the right to adequate housing. In some societies, for example, the State does not provide persons with disabilities necessary forms of support to enable them to live in the community; in others, housing is simply unaffordable.
- The cost of housing can disproportionately affect persons with disabilities, because they often face additional expenses (for healthcare, for example) as well as barriers that prevent them from accessing employment.
- Higher rates of poverty and discrimination may force persons with disabilities into slums and informal settlements.
- Homelessness disproportionately affects persons with disabilities. In some cases, this occurs when persons with disabilities are de-institutionalized but not supported adequately to live in the community. Poverty and discrimination are other causes.
- If their legal capacity is not recognized, persons with disabilities may not be allowed to enter into agreements to lease or own property. In addition, they are particularly likely to experience discrimination when property is inherited.
The following guidance will assist humanitarian actors working in HLP to identify and remove barriers faced by persons withdisabilities, as well as their families, support persons and caregivers, when they try to access HLP programmes in humanitariansettings.