Homeless: A Human Rights Issue
We’ve all had this happen: You’re walking down the street and a homeless person is asking for spare change. Some of us, if we happen to be walking down the street after dark, there are homeless people sitting in gutters, under streetlights, or shivering on the cold ground. These members of society often looked down upon for everything they do or don’t do. We would rather let homes rot than let homeless people stay in.

It seems so easy to overlook the homeless, but the truth is that there are over 610,000 homeless people in the United States. 65% of those people were staying in shelters or other temporary housing . What are people to do when faced with homelessness? 40% have reported squatting or having squatted at some point during their time being homeless. While it may seem that squatting is a criminal issue, it is actually an issue of human rights because housing is a right and need, not a privilege.

There are things that all people need to survive, and without question, if people do not have these things they cannot thrive. According to Manfred Max-Neef, one of the fundamental human needs is subsistence which is food, shelter, and work. People have to have those things to be able to thrive. Squatting comes in when there is a lack of work and a lack of housing. People go into buildings that most of the time aren’t up to standards, and renovate it, making it livable, while living in it. Squatters can be criminally charged, even though they have done no harm. People who squat do not occupy homes or buildings that are already occupied. They seek places that are easy to enter and places where they will not draw attention to themselves. There is no evidence anywhere that reveals homeless people squatting when adequate alternative housing is available. This leads into debunking the myth squatters do it because they want to. Some people squat as a political protest, but often those are in direct response to being homeless or a homeless issue. If squatting is criminalized further, people will not be deterred, as commonly believed. People squat as a last resort, and if there were other options for the homeless then they would not be pushed into squatting if there were other viable options available to them. 41% of squatters were reported to have mental health issues, and 34% have been in some kind of caring facility for it. But when you become homeless, you lose your job. When you have no job and cannot get one, you can’t have health care and your mental health declines even further. Mental health and squatting have direct correlations.

If appropriate facilities were available to homeless, then the squatting population will decrease heavily. If there were hospitals, adequate temporary housing, and psychiatric care available to those in need, and those services were accessible by everyone, and not just a select few, then the homeless would take full advantage of these services and they would be able to get back on their feet. If nothing else, there needs to be more homeless shelters and temporary housing. In large cities, as many as half of all homeless people are without even a shelter to go to, because there is simply not enough space for them.

This argument is not saying that all hope for humanity is lost. But in the words of Patricia O’Hara, “Like most people, I’m more comfortable giving when the people on the receiving end are anonymous.” This is a call to action as functioning members of society, to help those in need of housing, and here’s how to achieve that. The stereotype that ‘squatters are thieves’ needs to be broken; the homeless population needs to have access to adequate and appropriate medical care; do not introduce any more squatting related offences, and decriminalize current squatting related activities.

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