Disability And Right To Decent Housing

Disability and right to decent housing

Introduction

The main objective of this work is to expose the reality of disabled people and their right to decent housing. It is about truly understand who are the people considered disabled and in what aspects in the process of accessing an adequate home are affected their condition.

To address the issue of the most complete and appropriate way possible, you must first understand the basic terms that will be mentioned. Therefore, we will divide the work into two sections. The first will treat the term of disability and its classification, as well as some of the situations or obstacles facing the group mentioned in their daily life. The second part of this work, therefore, will explain what decent housing is according to the law, the requirements to be considered as such and the difficulties of people with disabilities when finding said home.

Finally, the work will end with a conclusion in which the main ideas of work will be exhibited as well as a brief proposal for the future.

Disability: concept and types

Disability is a term that we have tried to define throughout the years in many different ways, and that we have been correcting until we reach an adequate definition that is not denigrating. Previously he referred to people with disabilities as disabled, directly insinuating that they are less valid in general than the rest of the people. In the beginning they even referred to this group as subnormal or people with subnormalities.

He has had to work on it since he previously attempted his dignity by naming them inappropriately. Thanks to this, a fairly coherent definition has been reached.

As the World Health Organization (WHO) “a person with disabilities is a person who presents restrictions in class or in the number of activities that can be carried out due to current difficulties caused by a permanent or mental physical condition or greater thansix months." 

We find several types of disabilities that have tried to classify in different ways. In this plurality of classifications we usually see great similarities.

When there are different ways of classifying the types of disabilities, we have decided. We will focus on the classification carried out by the National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics (INEGI), which consists of four large groups that are later divided into subgroups. Each of these groups, without exception, has a subgroup called “insufficiently specified disabilities” in which all other disabilities related to said group are found but that are not specified as thoroughly as the others that make up the same (National Instituteof statistics, geography and computer science, 2000). The most common classification is the one that distinguishes physical disability, sensory and psychic. But in this case, the classification would be as follows:

•  Group 1: Sensory or communication disabilities. In this group all people with blindness, auditory weakness, visual weakness, hearing loss, mute and deafness would enter this group. This group is divided in turn into the following subgroups:

•  Vista disabilities.
•  Hearing disabilities.
•  Speech disabilities.
•  Disabilities of communication and understanding of language.

A limitation found in this classification is the fact that it does not differentiate between deficiency, which refers to the part of the affected body, and disability, which would be the consequence of said deficiency. Even so, it seems valid enough to take it into account for this work and the mere identification of the different possibilities of recognized disability.

Let’s deepen a little more on this supporting the data provided by the National Statistics Institute. According to this, in 2008 in Spain the number of people with disabilities or limitation had promoted 3.85 million, which corresponds to a rate of 85.5 per thousand. We also find a trend, since disability is higher in men up to 44 years, but from 45 this condition increases in women, following exponential growth in the rates corresponding to the different genres.

From the differentiation between genres we go to the differentiation between autonomous communities, where we discover that the highest rate of people disabled per thousand is found in Galicia, with 112.9;While the lowest corresponds to La Rioja, with 61.6.

As for types of disability, mobility is the most frequent with a rate of 42.6 per thousand in men and 77.5 per thousand in women. This greatly affects its perception of decent housing since 51.5% claim to find difficulties in access and mobility in their homes. These difficulties are especially related to the stairs (43.4%) and the bathroom (29.8%). This data is evidenced when we discover that 1.2 million homes where people with disabilities live have access barriers for them. (National Statistics Institute, 10/2009).

We also know that there are more than 650 million people with disabilities, and that 80% of them are in developing countries.

The right to decent housing

As the UN mentions in its informative brochure about the right to adequate housing, “International Human Rights Law recognizes the right of every person at an adequate standard of living, including adequate housing." 

The right to adequate housing includes protection against forced eviction and the destruction of the home, as well as the right of choice of residence and freedom of circulation. In addition, it includes other types of rights such as:

• The right of arbitrary interventions at home, privacy and family.
• The restitution of housing, land and heritage.
• Non -discrimination and equal conditions in the process of accessing housing.
• Participation in decisions regarding housing at the national level and in the community.

There are requirements that housing must meet to be considered adequate for anyone:

•  Tenure security: which protects the person from a forced eviction.
•  The availability of infrastructure that allows to meet basic needs: availability of drinking water, adequate sanitary facilities, energy, heating, light, food conservation and waste disposal.
•  Alfibility: that its cost allows and does not endanger the enjoyment of other human rights.
•  Location: close to social facilities, located in non -polluted or dangerous areas.

“The appropriate housing was recognized as part of the right to an adequate standard of living in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 and in the International Pact of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966.”The lack of adequate home leaves the affected and attentive against their rights and dignity.

More than one billion people do not have adequate home, living in deplorable conditions that put them at a higher health risk. Likewise, forced eviction is very common without prior notice that forces them to leave their home without having another place to go, or time to find it.

Focusing more on the subject in question, let’s deal with the obstacles that people find disabilities to enjoy their right of adequate housing. The continuous marginalization and exclusion of this group in society has as a direct consequence that they are rarely taken into account when building new homes. Considering that the majority of houses already built are designed for people without disabilities, access to households correctly adapted to the special needs of people with disabilities are difficult to find. The obstacles that this group finds are:

• The lack of physical accessibility. There are normally stairs to enter homes, without ramps or other facilities that facilitate entry to disabled.
•  Frequent discrimination and prejudices that affect the rental or purchase process of a home for this group of people.
•  Institutional obstacles.
•  Lack of housing or social support.
•  Lack of access to the labor market, which also has another obstacle: low income.

In relation to the latter, we find data that can be related to the issue of decent housing when we talk about the labor insertion of this group. Of the more than 526 thousand people with disabilities who are active in the working world, almost 107 thousand are unemployed. In addition, only 28.3% of disabled people in working age, worked when this survey was carried out in 2008.

The legal capacity of people with disabilities is limited, so many times they cannot enter into a formal housing contract. These are situations like this that leave them vulnerable to certain circumstances such as having to resort to less formal means to obtain housing or the greatest probability of forced eviction. 

conclusion

Taking into account that the number of people with disabilities in Spain has tended to grow, we should consider the possibility of considering this group more actively, especially when building new homes. It seems necessary to give them more visibility, so that society understands the situation in which they are, and understand their needs as well as how important they can be covered. We must start seeing them as another part of the community in which we live, and not as a minority group to marginalize and forget.

When it comes to human rights, it is essential to give the importance it deserves when they are not respected. We will not focus on discrimination that may suffer socially, which is unfair and should also fight, but on labor discrimination. It is a vicious cycle since if they do not have a job that provides them with necessary income, they will not be able to afford a home that adapts to their personal needs.

Personally I think that the good that the social programs that are already underway are now focused on the labor insertion of this group are incredible. I think that if people with disabilities who are in working age and work have the motivation to be part of something bigger, to also be able to contribute to society and not depend excessively on others. It seems fundamental that it is understood that a person is no less valid for being disabled, he simply finds greater obstacles than a person without disabilities. And while the limits of each of them must.

While there are laws that expressly protect them, more controls should be implemented to make sure that these laws are fulfilled, that obstacles in homes inhabited by these people are correctly identified and eliminated, and that their dignity is respected. As established in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities “States have the obligation to promote, protect and ensure full enjoyment and in conditions of equality of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities.”In this convention also recognizes that people with disabilities are legal persons with total capacity, which must be seen on equal terms as others.

Bibliography

1. Statistics National Institute. (10/2009). Panoramic of disability in Spain: Disability, personal autonomy and dependency situations. 2008. Government of Spain.
2. National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics. (2000). Disability type classification – historical. Mexico: Inegi.
3. United Nations. (s.F.). UN Habitat – The right to adequate housing – Informative Brochure No. 21/Rev. 1 . High Commissioner for Human Rights Office.