Pittsburgh Human Rights Housing Strategy

Pittsburgh Human Rights Housing Strategy

In April 2022, Pittsburgh welcomed global housing expert, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Adequate Housing, Leilani Farha to meet with city officials, housing advocates, students and other residents. She pointed out that Pittsburgh’s development is being driven by increasingly global real estate investors and developers, who seek only to generate profits—not to ensure safe and adequate housing for Pittsburgh residents. To address our housing crisis, we need to develop a human rights-based housing strategy for Pittsburgh. This will require strong political leadership by and on behalf of residents and the city of Pittsburgh that syncs housing supply with residents’ needs and incomes. Whoever leads these decisions determines who can live and thrive here. We are working to build community control over our city’s housing policies.

Ms. Farha's visit generated a set of recommendations for how we can work to improve access to affordable housing in Pittsburgh and ward off new threats to existing affordable housing. We compiled this report on the visit, highlighting insights and recommendations from our discussions with Ms. Farha, who now leads global housing rights organization, The Shift. Here you’ll also find helpful links to learning resources and legal tools to help advance housing as a human right. (Download report PDF)

Resources for developing a rights-based housing strategy

• Fair Housing Audit Identifying housing needs, existing infrastructure, and property ownership is a key piece of our work.

• Can We Prevent Slumlords from Buying More Buildings? Shelterforce Aug. 29 2022
• Who owns the city? How urban real estate became the corporate asset class of choice Saskia Sassen, City Monitor (Aug. 8, 2016)
• Who owns the city? We own the city! How commons makes cities more inclusive, righteous and democratic, Ron Jacobson, (Oct. 27, 2016)-Presents perspectives from diverse analysts on the city as a commons, and how housing politics impacts local democracy.
• Who (really) owns your city? How corporate landlords are using homes to make money (Feb. 2022) European Greens review the state of affairs in Europe and offer ideas for challenging corporate landlord class and financialization]
• REPORT: Who owns the city? Exploratory research activity on the financialisation of housing in EU cities, European Commission (Nov. 2021). "This report resumes the main findings from Citown, an exploratory research activity on the financialisation of housing in EU cities. The study follows indications that over the past years investors have been increasingly active on urban housing markets, using housing as a vehicle for wealth and investment, rather than considering it a social good. ...The study includes three main research components (seven city case studies; advanced analyses of Amsterdam housing data; descriptive data on institutional investment in multifamily property) ...[and m]ost findings confirm the assumption that housing financialisation negatively impacts housing affordability."

• The Shift Directives on Financialization and Human Rights (June 2022) The first-ever comprehensive framework providing governments and investors with guidance to effectively address the financialization of housing in accordance with human rights law.
• Guidelines for the implementation of the right to adequate housing (UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, 2019 [A/HRC/43/43]) The full text of the guidelines is available in all six UN languages here.
• Existing models of municipal human rights-based housing strategies:

• Human-Rights Based Housing Strategy -Kitchener, ON
• Toronto Rights-Based Housing Strategy
• Boston’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Tools & Assessment form for developers