UN expert: San Francisco’s homelessness crisis is a human rights violation and suggests ‘a cruelty that is unsurpassed’

pulse

November 10, 2018 4:56 PM

After calling San Francisco's homelessness crisis a human rights violation, UN expert Leilani Farha said it represented unsurpassed cruelty.

Jonathan Payne, a homeless man, takes down tarps he had used to protect his possessions during a storm in San Francisco.

trash, feces, and discarded needles
human rights violation

When Leilani Farha paid a visit to San Francisco in January, she knew the grim reputation of the city's homeless encampments. In her four years as the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Adequate Housing, Farha has visited the slums of Mumbai, Delhi, Mexico City,

But not even this knowledge could prepare Farha for what she witnessed in January.

In the city's core, homeless residents were denied basic access to water, toilets, and sanitation facilities. There were piles of trash and scattered feces on the ground. In the neighboring camps in Oakland, rats dug through the mud and families huddled outside in the cold. The experience, she said, shook her to her core.

The visit led to a report in which she described San Francisco's crisis as

San Franciscos homeless are often victims of hard times

A crisis of open air drug markets, discarded needles, and poop piles

San Francisco's crisis of open air drug markets, discarded needles, and piles of poop on the sidewalk dates back to the nation's neo-liberal housing policies in the 1980s, according to Farha.

These policies allowed the private sector to wrest control of investments in the affordable housing market, while the government slowly retreated. In 1986, President Reagan signed a housing tax credit that gave big corporations more oversight over low-income housing. By the 2000s, companies were selling off social housing — dubbed "housing of last resort" — for major profits.

After the global financial crisis in 2008, firms like Blackstone and Goldman Sachs began

In the current market,

ny residents have been quick to blame San Francisco's housing crisis on major tech companies like Google, Intel, Apple, Facebook, and

Homeless people camp in front of a shuttered restaurant in San Francisco. BusinessInsider

Housing is a human right

At least one key player in California has taken note of Farha's concerns. After releasing her report in September, Farha received a call from Oakland Mayor

If a person is walking along the street and sees someone homeless, it's okay to think whatever you want, she said. "But also think, 'That homeless person represents my government's failure to implement the right to adequate housing.'"

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