Peru: still waiting for results four years after the visit of UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing
The mission of the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing to Peru was meant to be an opportunity to link local struggles for shelter with an international pro-housing rights strategy.
To organise and publicise the Special Rapporteur’s visit to Peru, envisaged as a collaboration with the UN anti-evictions committee (UN-AGFE), a number of different institutions and groups put together an Organising Group: the National Human Rights Coordinator, the Committee of the Campaign for the Right to Decent Housing (made up of the CENCA Institute of Urban Development, Estrategia [Strategy], the Group for Urban Initiatives [GIU], Ciudad [City] and SEA, the Federation of Neighbourhood Associations of Lima and Callao [FOVELIC]; the Centre for Research, Documentation and Consultancy [CIDAP], the Peruvian Platform for Human Rights, Democracy and Development; the Pro-Human Rights Association [APRODEH] and the Flora Tristán Peruvian Women’s Centre, the Neighbourhood Coordinator for Urban Renewal and the Defence of Tenants and Residents, UPIS-Huáscar, the Organisation of Residents Affected by the San Juan de Lurigancho Ring Road, the Neighbourhood Union for Urban Renewal and Development UVE-DIDRU, the Common Front of the Zapallal People [FRIDPEZ] and the Association of Consumers and Clients [ACYU].
Three years after the Special Rapporteur’s visit, the National Human Rights Coordinator asked the Committee of the Campaign for the Right to Decent Housing to report on progress made by the Peruvian government in following the Rapporteur’s recommendations. The allocation of this responsibility recognised the Committee’s role in keeping track of housing policy throughout this period, making alternative, human-rights based, proposals for improving the housing conditions of the poorest social groups.
To produce the report the Committee drew up a plan of work including a questionnaire survey addressed to various public agencies involved in meeting the Rapporteur’s recommendations. It carried out interviews with government officials and civil society specialists and reviewed all official documentation to which it was able to gain access.
The different tasks were distributed among the Committee members according to their specialist knowledge, for example in the legal regulation of housing rights, rental housing and historic city centres, land titling in low-income neighbourhoods and threats of eviction, support for citizen and local stakeholder initiatives, the economic and financial aspects of government programmes, gender issues, the impact of mining policy on human settlements, the protection and reconstruction of settlements affected by natural disasters, utility privatisation etc.
A market -based approach has seen the housing deficit grow to 2.2 million homes
The analysis of responses to the Rappoteur’s recommendations found that four years after the mission there had been little real progress in meeting the right to adequate housing in Peru. Both the previous (Toledo) and current (APRA) governments have privileged a market-based approach that has failed to meet the needs of lower-income groups. It is worth noting, for example, that by November 2006 the ‘Your Own Roof’ (Techo Propio) programme had carried out only 78 projects, benefiting a mere 35,000 families, when the housing deficit in the year 2000 was in excess of 1.2 million housing units and approximately 90,000 new households enter the market each year. It is no surprise, then, that the deficit has grown and it is estimated that by the year 2005 it exceeded 1.5 million units, and by 2007 was bordering on 2.2 million units.
The analysis was not limited to collecting statistics: a number of case studies were also undertaken. These included the organizations fighting for property titling and security of tenure and against forced evictions, such as the UPIS Huáscar, FOVELIC, the settlements affected by housing collapses such as the Association for the Development of the ‘7th of October’ Area, the organizations for Oroya affected by mining activities, and those from the urban centres of Lima.
Alternatives: redirecting public resources, debt swaps and a general law of land, housing and planning
The compilation of the report was linked to other efforts on the part of the Committee to influence public policy, such as the proposal to create a fund for popular housing allowing public funds and the funds that could be obtained from debt-for-social-development swaps to be redirected towards the poor, who suffer from precarious housing conditions threatening their health and wellbeing. Another proposal calls for the creation of a general law of land, housing and territorial planning to provide the legal framework guaranteeing the right to decent, safe and healthy housing for all Peruvians and urban planning based on principles of inclusive development, respectful of communal forms of organisation and communities’ rights to decide on the way the land they occupy is to be used.
Preparation of the report was interrupted in August 2007 when an earthquake devastated areas in the south of the country, killing more than 500 people and destroying almost 40,000 houses. The period covered by the report was therefore extended to December 2007, when it was noted that the process of reconstruction had been extremely slow. The problems facing the residents of areas affected by mining were also included, as were those of contributors to the National Housing Fund FONAVI, given that its closure and the transfer of its funds to the government undermined their access to the financial instruments allowing them to improve their housing conditions.
Social organiz ations propose a shared agenda to defend the right to housing
The process of compiling the report also allowed questions to be put to the representatives of the Peruvian government concerning its international commitments. The completed report will provide a basis for dialogue between the Peruvian government and social organisations and civil society institutions addressing the different themes touching on the right to adequate housing that the Rapporteur considered in his report. To this end those fighting for the right to housing at national level should redouble their efforts to make international links with United Nations’ agencies and residents’ association networks.
The production of the report has strengthened the links between organisations working to defend human rights and those working for the right to housing in our country. It also opens up the possibility of extending this shared platform to include other institutions with a similar vision and social organisations currently working in isolation. At the same time, given the wide variety of themes addressed, the report presents a broad-ranging agenda for action with the potential to bring together social organisations and citizen movements fighting for the right to security of tenure and against evictions with groups promoting new approaches to housing policy, those concerned with the environmental problems in areas affected by mining, those fighting for the right to water and against the privatisation of basic water and drainage services and those affected by natural disasters (earthquakes, landslides, floods, cold spells [friajes ]).