I was chatting to someone who said that having a
place to live is a human right. I know what they mean, but as an economist, I
also know it’s a problematic statement. There is a difference between making
the statement “I want everyone to have a place to live” (on which we can
hopefully all agree), to the statement “Having a place to live is a human right.”
Here’s why. You could say that everyone has a right to a home - but what does
that really mean to you? If we think of it as an absolute right, it suggests
some troubling implications. For example, if someone fails to provide another
person with a home, should they be forced to by law? If a landlord refuses to
rent or a builder refuses to construct homes, should they be compelled to act
against their will, because to fail to do so would be a breach of human rights?
I don’t think so, and probably neither do you.
You can’t hope to live in a world where failure to deprive another of a home is punishable by law, because most people are not providing someone with a home who is not their immediate family. And it would be absurd to penalise those who are already providing some people with homes for not doing more when most of us are not providing anyone else with homes at all. “Why dost thou lash, strip thine own back” from King Lear springs to mind.
Of course, most human rights tend to be obligations on governments, not private individuals. But providing homes costs money, which means providing homes by governments is a de facto obligation on individuals. Somebody has to pay for it – and I don’t know that there is a morally binding agreement that says anyone should be forced to pay for someone else to have a home, especially as turning housing into an enforceable right creates unintended economic distortions and inefficiencies.
Consequently, we can’t just say that everyone has a right to be provided with a home by the government, because that only passes the problem sideways, as it’s still the public who pays for it. You could insist that a better right is that the government has a duty to ensure affordable housing exists for everyone, but that’s not going to work either. Who decides how much housing, at what quality, where, and at what cost? A government does not have the top-down information structure or central intelligence to ascertain those criteria, much less establish who bears the responsibility to provide the homes, and in a way that factors in a whole range of complex human needs, preferences, decisions, mistakes and lifestyle choices. If Jack cheats on Jill, and she throws him out, does Jack have an immediate human right to a home? If so, where, and of what quality, and provided by whom? Should there be homes sitting empty awaiting people like Jack who need them urgently?
No, as much as we should like to live in a world in which everyone has a home, the idea that having a place to live is a human right is a problematic one.
