Using the Human Rights Based Approach to Tackle Housing Deprivation in an Irish Urban Housing Estate

Housing rights are becoming significant as a tool for highlighting needs and raising housing standards across the world. These rights are now an integral part of economic, social, and cultural rights within international human rights instruments, while the right to adequate housing is recognized legally at national and international levels. Among the methods of implementing these rights the human rights based approach (HRBA) is used by NGOs, community organizations and rights advocates. Many housing rights issues arise in relation to standards in social housing, urban regeneration and social housing policy development. This article examines a case study where the HRBA has been applied by local authority tenants in partnership with community development organizations and supported by human rights expertise to campaign for improvements to substandard housing conditions and deprivation within a Dublin inner city social housing estate. It appraises the adoption of the HRBA as a response to inadequate housing conditions and delayed regeneration programmes. The impact of poor housing on the health of tenants was an integral element of the arguments used. The outcomes of using the HRBA for the rights holders (the tenants) are assessed. Overall, this campaign led to significant improvements in conditions. The factors underlying the success centred on the way in which the HRBA framework, with its focus on measurable indicators of human rights violations, enabled community development organizations to create a human rights based public campaign that exerted considerable political pressure through the empowerment of tenants, leveraging of human rights experts, and considerable media publicity. The development of solutions in parallel with the local authority was also important. This approach transcended many established NGO and state approaches to addressing poverty.