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The purpose of this paper is to outline and examine the growing corpus of housing rights and assess their relevance and applicability to complex contemporary housing systems across the world.

The paper sets out the principal instruments and commentaries on housing rights developed by the United Nations, regional and other bodies. It assesses their relevance in the context of contemporary analysis of housing systems, organized and directed by networks of legal and other professionals within particular domains.

Housing rights instruments are accepted by all States across the world at the level of international law, national constitutions and laws. The findings suggest that there are significant gaps in the international law conception and framework of housing rights, and indeed, human rights generally, which create major obstacles for the effective implementation of these rights. There is a preoccupation with one element of housing systems, that of subsidized or social housing. However, effective housing rights implementation requires application at meso‐, micro‐ and macro‐levels of modern, dynamic housing systems as a whole. Epistemic communities of professionals develop and shape housing law and policy within these domains. The housing rights paradigm must be further fashioned for effective translation into contemporary housing systems.

The development of housing rights precedents, both within international and national law, is leading to a wide and diffuse corpus of legislation and case law. More research is needed on specific examples of effective coupling between housing rights and elements of housing systems.

This paper offers housing policy makers and lawyers an avenue into the extensive jurisprudence and writings on housing rights, which will inevitably become part of the lexicon of housing law across the world. It also highlights the limitations of housing rights implementation, but offers some new perspectives on more effective application of these rights.

This article aims to explore the concept of achieving the “right to the city” for marginalised communities. It uses human rights instruments and regeneration best practice to develop a toolkit of indicators for urban regeneration. The article contributes to the literature on realising economic, social and cultural rights encompassed in the “right to the city”.

The article adopts an interdisciplinary approach, involving human rights law, urban planning, housing studies, community development, housing law and social policy. It draws on primary qualitative (participative and observatory) research undertaken by the author while implementing a human rights based approach in an Irish inner‐city local authority estate from 2009 to 2013.

The human rights framework can be adapted to develop a set of measurable regeneration indicators. This article suggests that the application of this rights toolkit provides a greater potential for regeneration to meet human rights standards, and therefore, realise the “right to the city” in practice.

The application of the human rights based approach to urban regeneration would benefit from wider empirical testing on its suitability for implementation in other countries and global regions. It would benefit from critical engagement with human rights practitioners, community groups, and state agencies seeking to realise the “right to the city”.

This is the first known academic attempt to explore the pathway of a human rights based approach to urban regeneration in order to realise the “right to the city” in practice.

Access to adequate housing represents a right entitled to any individual, as has been acknowledged by all states around the world. In Iran, despite the declaration of this right as per the Article 31 of Iran’s Constitution, it is yet to be realized. The purpose of this study is to developing a model for realization of the right to the adequate housing.

The present research was performed through a guided qualitative method. Structural-interpretative modeling was performed to present the model of right to adequate housing, and Mic Mac analysis was conducted for clustering the identified factors. Statistical population was composed of housing experts, with the samples taken via purposive sampling technique.

Based on the findings, the following factors were found to impose the largest effects on the realization of the right to adequate housing: alignment with ideology and beliefs of society; governance structure related arrangements; social structure related arrangements; improving security of tenure; justice in tenure; and local requirements.

Findings of this research contributes to increasing the awareness of the housing officials about their policies, reminding them the necessity of revisiting their routines for policy-setting. Indeed, they must switch from centralized policymaking to localized (provincealization) policymaking.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to investigate the right to adequate housing in Iran, elaborating on the relationship between relevant theories and practical issues.

This paper aims to address housing right for female-headed households in Iran housing plans.

This research was conducted on female-headed households by a demographic attribute’s analysis. This paper tries to address housing right for female-headed households in housing plans. The analysis is done in the following three steps: (1) demographic variables analysis of female-headed households. Demographic variables include economic, social and health attributes. The statistical information related to the female-headed households in Tehran used in this step is based on the statistics of the Statistical Center of Iran; (2) share of female-headed households in Tehran in proportion to the total households. Also, the activity of female-headed households in Tehran; and (3) share of housing right for female-headed households in Iran Housing Plans. In this step, a questionnaire has been developed for 30 experts in which housing right for female-headed households have been asked for Iran housing plans.

The results show that with the increase in female-headed households in Tehran, they spend about 49 per cent of their income on housing, which influences the quality and quantity of other essential requirements of them such as food, clothing, health and education. The lack of adequate housing and increased housing rentals have forced them to live in informal settlements and low-quality homes. Based on Women Housing Right, adequate and affordable housing for them has not been considered in Iran’s housing plans.

In spite of the emphasis on strengthening the position of female-headed households in the fourth, fifth and sixth development plans of Iran, this has not practically happened. The unfavorable status of female-headed households in the housing system is not due to their lack of problem-solving susceptibility, but their systematic exclusion in housing policy and practice in Tehran.

This paper has not been published in any journal.

This paper aims to discuss the questioning around the current suitability of ownership both for accessing to certain property (housing, to be more specific) and chattels (digital contents, animals and autonomous robots) that have recently flourished, favored by technological advances and the change in the values of the millennials’ in a context of crisis.

The process of substitution (e.g. through alternative housing tenures, such as intermediate tenures and collaborative housing, licensing digital contents) or erosion/elimination (e.g. owning animals and robots, tokenization through blockchain) of ownership through key types of property and chattels.

Ownership, both of land and goods, is again at the stake. Technological advances and/or new values of millennials in a context of crisis have led to questioning the suitability of ownership to favor universal access to housing, of holding music and other digital contents, have limited the faculties of animals’ and pets’ owners and are favoring the evolution of autonomous robots into subjects of law rather than mere objects.

Only key property (housing) and chattels are studied (digital contents, animals, robots). There is no broad study of the global current situation of ownership.

It is discussed how the changes of values and technological advances in a context of crisis have impacted in the strength and reliability of ownership to allow access to property and chattels.

These changes in ownership change how we can access to property (housing) and to chattels (digital media) and even to changes in what is considered “object” such as what is happening in Europe with animals and robots.

This is a new approach to consequences of the crisis in the field of housing (fractioning of ownership -temporal and shared ownership-, collaborative economy) and a change of values in the new millennial generation (animals) in this context and owing to the advance of the new technologies (robots). Is ownership again at the stake?

The socialist approach to housing in Croatia was to give tenants strong, and to some extent rigid, rights. During this paradigm, market renting was also discouraged. The policy privileged tenants and gave them subsidized rent, but it also limited their spatial mobility if they did not want to lose that privileged status. After independence, two vital processes on the housing market were undertaken: the privatization of socially owned housing stock and denationalization. Consequently, the stock of apartments previously owned by the companies and the state was sold to the ‘tenancy right’ holders for just a small part of its market value, resulting in more than 80 per cent of apartment users becoming legal owners. That is a positive outcome from a social policy perspective, but it could endanger the mobility of the Croatian labour force. Price developments and turnover dynamics are still bounded by underdeveloped and outdated cadastre as well as strong regional differences.

HIV and AIDS is an urgent housing and human settlements issue, especially among women and children living in poverty and suffering from poor housing conditions in urban slums in the South. The link between poverty and HIV prevalence is well established, and the fact that inadequate shelter increases the vulnerability of the urban poor to HIV and AIDS is increasingly recognised. Since 2003, Rooftops Canada and their partners in Kenya, Tanzania, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and more recently Uganda, have been working on strategies and developing programmes to respond to the AIDS crisis in these countries. Related programmes link shelter to poverty reduction through sustainable economic and social development, environmental protection, respect for human rights, democratisation and gender equality.

This paper compiles the experiences of the partner housing organisations and resource groups in Sub-Saharan Africa responding to HIV and AIDS among their constituent stakeholders. The community-based responses focus on promoting social sustainability, enhancing operational capacity and improving financial sustainability. Community-based responses relate to issues of stigma and discrimination, reducing the impact of housing rights violations and responding to the specific vulnerability of children, women and youth. Social sustainability deals with the impact of HIV and AIDS on the social viability of communities. Operational capacity analyses housing groups' responses to the organ-isational impact of HIV and AIDS - including loss of staff, leadership and institutional memory, decreased productivity and capacity - and the experience of including HIV and AIDS within the core organisational mandate. Financial sustainability explores the challenges of reconciling related financial and social goals.

This paper aims to offer Sitio San Roque, an informal settlement in the Philippines as a case study to explore long-term "forgetful" urban development planning in the Philippines, and the renewed visibility of the urban poor under COVID-19 lockdown. It connects scholarship on informality to issues of housing and political rights in Metro Manila to further investigate how vulnerable communities in the Global South are faring in the pandemic.

This is an exploration of Sitio San Roque, an informal settler community in Metropolitan "Metro" Manila, Philippines. This paper refers to recent journalistic reports pertaining to the community's ongoing evictions and arrests while under Metro Manila's "enhanced community quarantine." Furthermore, it converses with literature from disciplines including health-care policy, urban studies and recent studies on COVID-19 and vulnerable communities to critically discuss the plight of the urban poor in the pandemic-stricken Metro Manila.

The urban poor and members of informal communities such as Sitio San Roque are especially vulnerable to contracting COVID-19 because of precarious livelihoods and housing instability. The creation of informality in Metro Manila can be traced to political tensions, economic agendas and development planning since the time of Marcos' administration and also to global restructuring during the 1990s. However, also important to note is that under Metro Manila's lockdown, informal settlers are further disenfranchised and stigmatized via ongoing demolitions and evictions, as well as by processes of policing and criminalization by the state. The use of military and police personnel as a way to enforce lockdown in the metropolis further impedes on the rights of informal settlers and the urban poor.

Recent scholarship and reports discuss the challenges for informal communities and the urban poor in navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, mainly due to their housing conditions and loss of economic stability. This paper contributes to a critical understanding of these issues by adding the dimensions of political and housing rights. It refers to the case study of members of Sitio San Roque, who have experienced continuous threats of demolitions and arrests by state police for protesting the lack of government aid under lockdown. Both military approaches of governance and housing informality work in tandem to expose the vulnerabilities of the urban poor in Metro Manila's pandemic. Finally, this paper extends on urban studies scholar Gavin Shatkin's concept of “forgetful planning” (2004) by applying his discussions to the current context. Informal settlers have long been “forgotten” by the state's development plans, but are now remembered and deemed more visible in Metro Manila's ECQ.

A healthy society consists of physically, mentally and psychologically healthy individuals. In this respect, it is crucial to raise children as healthy individuals in every sense. Children's rights can be defined as the rights stipulating to protect our children from harm and abuse; give them a chance to be raised as emotionally healthy individuals and provide their basic needs such as nutrition and shelter. The child should have the right to adequate nutrition and a safe haven. In this context, it should be a primary goal for everyone to enable children, who are the future of society, to benefit from their physical environments as equally as possible.

The purpose of this study is to develop new type of reverse mortgage contract. How to provide adequate services and housing for an increasing number of people that are dependent on the help of others is a crucial question in the European Union (EU). The housing stock in Europe is not fit to support a shift from institutional care to the home-based independent living. Some 90% of houses in the UK and 70%–80% in Germany are not adequately built, as they contain accessibility barriers for people with emerging functional impairments. The available reverse mortgage contracts do not allow for relocation to their own adapted facilities. How to finance the adaptation from housing equity is discussed.

The authors have extended the existing loan reverse mortgage model. Actuarial methods based on the equivalence of the actuarial present values and the multiple decrement approach are used to evaluate premiums for flexible longevity and lifetime long-term care (LTC) insurance for financing adequate facilities.

The adequate, age-friendly housing provision that is appropriate to support the independence and autonomy of seniors with declining functional capacities can lower the cost of health care and improve the well-being of older adults. For financing the development of this kind of facilities for seniors, the authors developed the reverse mortgage scheme with embedded longevity and LTC insurance as a possible financial instrument for better LTC services and housing with care in assisted-living facilities. This kind of facilities should be available for the rapid growth of older cohorts.

The numerical example is based on rather crude numbers, because of lack of data, as the developed reverse mortgage product with LTC insurance is a novelty. Intensity of care and probabilities of care in certain category of care will change after the introduction of this product.

The model results indicate that it is possible to successfully tie an insurance product to the insured and not to the object.

The introduction of this insurance option will allow many older adult with low pension benefits and a substantial home equity to safely opt for a reverse mortgage and benefit from better social care.

While currently available reverse mortgage contracts lapse when the homeowner moves to assisted-living facilities in any EU Member State, in the paper a new method is developed where multiple adjustments of housing to the functional capacities with relocation is possible, under the same insurance and reverse mortgage contract. The case of Slovenia is presented as a numerical example. These insurance products, as a novelty, are portable, so the homeowner can move in own specialised housing unit in assisted-living facilities and keep the existing reverse mortgage contract with no additional costs, which is not possible in the current insurance products. With some small modifications, the method is useful for any EU Member State.