{"id":10040,"date":"2018-10-20T10:56:10","date_gmt":"2018-10-20T17:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=10040"},"modified":"2018-10-20T10:56:10","modified_gmt":"2018-10-20T17:56:10","slug":"the-u-n-on-homelessness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2018\/10\/20\/the-u-n-on-homelessness\/","title":{"rendered":"The U.N. on homelessness"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Note from Mike Zint of First They Came for the Homeless:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Something is coming. The UN came to visit several cities and issued scathing reports on LA, SF, and Oakland. Leilani Farha did not slam Berkeley because I asked\u00a0her not to. We had vulnerable seniors conducting the city hall occupation at the time, and I did not trust the city enough to not retaliate. They raided anyways, after lying.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Oct. 23rd, a group of well known groups will be in Oakland. I’m looking forward to seeing this group come together.<\/p>\n

Press Conference<\/p>\n

For Immediate Release<\/p>\n

Bay Area Curbside Communities Respond To UN Special Rapporteur on Homelessness and the Right to Adequate Housing Report<\/p>\n

When and Where:<\/p>\n

Tuesday, October 23rd<\/p>\n

11-12<\/p>\n

Oakland City Hall Ampitheater<\/p>\n

Frank Ogawa Plaza<\/p>\n

On October 19th, the United Nations Special Rapporteur to the Right to Adequate Housing, Lelani Farha, released its new report. In January of 2017, Farha spent time in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Los Angeles to meet with unhoused residents and housed advocates and described their conditions as \u201ccruel and inhumane. The only U.S. cities called out for violations in the UN\u2019s report on global homelessness are San Francisco and Oakland.<\/p>\n

She states that while the existence of \u201cinformal settlements\u201d are human rights violations due to local government\u2019s lack of will to provide permanent housing to all residents, these encampments are also people\u2019s assertion to their denied human right of housing. Rather than criminalize or ignore these settlements, until permanent housing can be offered to all, it is the duty of local governments not to evict curbside communities but to upgrade them.<\/p>\n

Homeless leaders and advocates in San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland hosted Ms. Farha, including Coalition on Homelessness, Western Regional Advocacy Project, The East Oakland Collective, The Village\/Feed The People, and First They Came For The Homeless. Ms. Farha was able to hear and speak directly with people living in encampments and on our streets about the oppression, hatred and Police violence they experience everyday.<\/p>\n

In Ms. Farha\u2019s report she frames the encampments and street dwelling in the United States under the same vein as the informal settlements around the world. Finding that \u201cthe scope and severity of the living conditions in informal settlements make this one of the most pervasive violations of human rights globally,\u201d states the report. The Oakland conditions of discrimination and harassment of encampment residents and punitive denials of access to basic services constitute \u201ccruel and inhuman treatment and is a violation of multiple human rights\u2026Such punitive policies must be prohibited in law and immediately ceased.\u201d<\/p>\n

This assertion falls in line with the 9th Circuit Courts Sept 4th decision that criminalization of homelessness violates curbside communities\u2019 8th amendment rights and constitutes as cruel and unusual punishment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Report of the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing As a Component of the Right to an Adequate Standard of Living, and on the Right to Non-Discrimination in this Context\u201d is being presented at the United Nation\u2019s office in New York on October 19th. In solidarity with this presentation at the UN, events are planned in New York City; Denver, Colorado, and Oakland, CA October 23.<\/p>\n

Writing in support of WRAPs Right to Rest acts in California, Colorado, and Oregon, the Rapporteur summed up her visit in California thusly; \u201cIn my capacity as the UN Rapporteur on Housing, I visited California and saw firsthand the human right violations being experienced by people who are homeless. They are the victims of failed policies\u2014not the perpetrators of crime. The state of California must take action to remedy the criminalization of rest\u2026While I toured encampments and drop-in facilities serving homeless people, the community repeatedly expressed that they simply wanted to be treated as human beings. It is dehumanizing, demoralizing, and unjust to criminalize hundreds of thousands of people due to their housing status.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report concludes with recommendations to enhance the lives of over 800 million people around the world who live in informal settlements and inhumane conditions concluding \u201cThat truth is that by any measure \u2014 moral, political or legal \u2014 it is unacceptable for people to be forced to live this way. Refusing to accept the unacceptable is where we must begin. All actors must mobilize within a shared human rights paradigm around the imperative of upgrading all informal settlements by 2030.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report can be found on WRAPs website;https:\/\/wraphome.org\/research-landing-page\/legalresearch\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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WRAPHOME.ORG<\/div>\n
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Legal Research – WRAP<\/a><\/div>\n
U.N. Report of the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate stan . . .<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note from Mike Zint of First They Came for the Homeless: Something is coming. The UN came to visit several cities and issued scathing reports on LA, SF, and Oakland. Leilani Farha did not slam Berkeley because I asked\u00a0her not to. We had vulnerable seniors conducting the city hall occupation… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10040"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10040"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10041,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10040\/revisions\/10041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}