UN Special Rapporteur: Having no home is ‘a human rights violation’

A United Nations special rapporteur has said homelessness is a human rights violation amid calls for a constitutional right to housing in this country.

Leilani Farha, the UN special rapporteur for adequate housing, also suggested the Government needed to do much more to tackle the issue of homelessness here. The most recent figures published by the Government showed in April there were 9,652 people in emergency accommodation, including 3,689 children.

Ms Farha made her comments at the launch of a new paper by the Simon Communities entitled Making the Case for a Right to Housing in Ireland, and a call from the organisation’s spokesperson for a broader conversation on enshrining housing rights in the Irish Constitution.