Read the letter written by organizations of the civil society, academics and citzens of US about PETRA (Preservation, Enhancement and Transition of Rental Assistance Act), a new national housing policy. It is directed to the Housing and Urban Depelopment Secretary, Shaun Donovan. The UN Special Rapportteur on the Right to Adequate Housing signs the document. Secretary Shaun Donovan.
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
451 7th Street S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20410
Dear Secretary Donovan,
As local and national organizations working to protect the human right to housing in the United States, we write to express our ongoing and grave concerns regarding the current state of PETRA. At a time when public housing residents are in desperate need of stability and increased public resources, aspects of PETRA threaten the sustainability of these communities.
While we commend your agencys response to the long-standing need to streamline rental assistance programs, we remain concerned that elements of PETRA will set into motion a process of public housing privatization. In particular, project-basing our public housing provides no guarantee that these deeply affordable housing units will remain permanent assets to our communities.
Furthermore, the mortgage financing mechanism proposed in PETRA immediately invites private entities in the financial sector to play a role that undermines public housing as a public good. This first step toward privatization is evident in at least three ways:
First, PETRA enables private financial institutions to acquire legal interests and rights in public assets.
Second, PETRA creates a risk of foreclosure and potential transfer of scarce affordable housing to banks and other financial institutions by shifting the status of public housing from public good to real estate commodity.
Third, PETRA institutionalizes the profit motive, and perhaps even profiteering, into public goods. (For-profit lenders do not operate for public, social, or charitable purposes and will expect a healthy return on their investments).
Consequently, PETRAs current configuration is fundamentally at odds with public housings central premise: providing for precisely the people and communities whom the housing market persistently excludes. This proposal is particularly imprudent in light of the recent foreclosure crisis, which has demonstrated that markets alone will not address the basic needs and rights of all people in the United States. As the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, Raquel Rolnik, has stated, The belief that markets will provide adequate housing for all has failed. The current crisis is a stark reminder of this reality.
The experiences of poor communities struggling to meet their basic housing needs were recently documented by the Rapporteur. The Rapporteurs visit was the first official visit of a UN Special Rapporteur to the United States to investigate allegations of violations of the right to adequate housing. The Rapporteur met with over seventy grassroots organizations to witness the housing crisis from community-based perspectives. Among her extensive findings, the Rapporteur emphasized the framework of housing as real estate rather than social need?ii as a root cause of displacement and housing insecurity.
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