An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
Glass Houses and Stones
The United Nations is fretting that the United States might be violating human rights by not providing adequate housing. To get to the bottom of the issue, the U.N. Human Rights Council has dispatched Brazilian architect and urban planner Raquel Rolnik, the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, to our shores. We apologize for being unwelcoming hosts, but she should go back from whence she came.
Miss Rolnik’s bureaucratic pity might be better targeted at her native Brazil, where 28.9 percent of the urban population lives in slums, according to the UN-HABITAT Global Urban Indicators database. Or China, where the rate is 32.8 percent. Or Kenya at 54.8 percent, Mozambique at 79.5 percent, or Sierra Leone, where 97 percent of people in cities are slum dwellers.
But instead, the U.N. is expending its limited time and resources on the United States, where the homeless population is a fraction of a percent, three-quarters of people below the poverty line live in homes with two or more bedrooms, and median square feet of living space per person in poverty is 91 percent of the national median, according to the 2007 American Housing Survey. This is not what you would call a human-rights nightmare.
Miss Rolnik’s mission fits well with the Obama administration’s objective to have government intrude on every aspect of American life. She promotes “really thinking out of the box” about housing, particularly by moving away from the American dream of individual homeownership and toward more collective solutions, including “rent schemes, subsidized rent schemes, with public housing, with other types of community development housing, and other types of schemes. And of course, putting more priority on that in the government agenda and take that as a responsibility of the state.”
Read the rest of the column here.
I have made no secret of my disgust for the United Nations. The concept was a decent one, but the reality is far from decent, in any way, shape or form. It is one of the more corrupt bodies in the world. So, when someone with a socialist agenda comes waltzing into MY country, claiming our poor are so mistreated, I take issue.
Which is likely not to have a roof over their heads? In a report from Heritage Foundation from August 2007, we find: For most Americans, the word “poverty” suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter. But only a small number of the 37 million persons classified as “poor” by the Census Bureau fit that description. While real material hardship certainly does occur, it is limited in scope and severity. Most of America’s “poor” live in material conditions that would be judged as comfortable or well-off just a few generations ago.
Are there poor in America? No doubt. Do we have a homeless problem? You betcha. Many of those who are homeless, roaming the streets, do so by choice. Many are mentally ill, alcoholics, drug addicts, who do not want to live in government housing. You can’t force someone to take charity who don’t want it. Well, unless you lock the door to prevent them from leaving.
Many have become homeless in recent months due to the ‘housing crisis’, brought about by government intervention. Giving loans to people who could not afford to pay them back is not a good business decision.
Now, before Mzzzzzzzzzzz Rolnik starts casting stones in our direction, perhaps she should take a real good look at her home. The biggest social challenge for the Brazilian government and society is the lack of education, housing, health care and nutrition for the homeless children. Thousands live on the streets, abandoned by parents unable to afford to raise them. These children often abuse drugs, commit crimes and resort to prostitution to survive.
I suppose we should have sent de Tocqueville packing too.
And this has what to do with ……what?