Homelessness and housing rights in the European Unions social policy

Abstract

The thesis presents international housing rights, with a focus on Europe. It shows their development of housing rights standards and analysis the jurisprudence related to them. The end of this part (Chapter 2) consists in a proposal concerning the future development of housing rights: it is argued that more individual enforceability is needed and that they could have a preventive function to protect persons in vulnerable situations from homelessness. Policies on homelessness within the European Union’s social policy are presented with an overview over the development of the EU’s social policy and the growing importance the topic of homelessness plays therein (Chapter 3). It is critically examined if the EU policy on homelessness is able to deliver progress. Further, the role of housing rights within the EU social policy is analysed. Concluding that they do not play an important role yet, it is argued that the inclusion of housing rights to homelessness policies would improve their quality. Finally, the need for an EU-wide policy on homelessness based on housing rights is argued (Chapter 4). Several possibilities are shown on how to include these rights to such policy and on which role they could play therein.