Documents

Here you find publications, articles, legislation and other kinds of documents related to the right to adequate housing.

Land Rights and Ethnic Conflict in Burma

Burma is one of the world’s most ethnically diverse countries. Ethnic minorities make up an estimated 30-40 percent of the total population, and ethnic states occupy some 57 percent of the total land area and are home to poor and often persecuted ethnic minority groups. Most of the people living in these impoverished and war-torn areas are subsistence farmers practicing upland cultivation. Economic grievances have played a central part in fuelling the civil war. While the central government has been systematically exploiting the natural resources of these areas, the money earned has not been (re)invested to benefit the local population.

The housing situation of Roma communities

Roma are more likely to live in poverty than non-Roma citizens. They have a higher risk of unemployment, stay in school for fewer years, and many live without access to drinking water, sanitation and electricity. Roma are more likely to suffer from chronic illness and have less access to health services. UNDP works with national partners to promote inclusion of Roma into economic, social, political and community life and in this publication they analyze the housing situation in Roma communities and the discrepancies regarding their non-Roma neighbors.

A Report on the Foreclosure Crisis California in Crisis: How Wells Fargo’s Foreclosure Pipeline is Damaging Local Communities

Five years after the housing market collapsed, California’s economy remains weak. The unemployment rate is nearly 10 percent, twice what it was in 2006, and in 2012 the State’s underemployment rate averaged an astonishing 19.3 percent. The continuing housing crisis remains a key cause of this widespread economic tragedy. Nearly two million California homeowners are underwater, owing more on their mortgage than their home is worth. This report shows the tremendous damage that will befall California’s communities if the foreclosures continue on so many families.