Legal Right to Housing?

As I was looking through my favorite Middle-East (English) version website I came across this interesting article. Can anyone from Scotland or France shed any light on this particlur issue?

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exer...91B1AC409E.htm

I saw this one in the French news last week. What happen is France has a huge net of charities (the best known is Medecins Sans Frontieres, Doctors without Borders) working in and outside. Some decided to highlight the homeless problem in providing RED tents to the homeless, action which makes them visible.
We are in a pre-election period and the Politics don’t like when their visible failures are shown on an open ground.
So, Chirac, always better in speeches than in action, decided to initiate a law to give the impression he is doing something… Few months before his 12 years of presidency…
But what is new is the fact that some homeless have job, go to work even if they live in tent, in their cars or in shelters… But due to Chirac’s politic and the so-called flexibility, these jobs are so under-paid than they can’t afford to pay rent (well, 3 months deposit and so and so). In order to hind this (and the fact that, if unemployment decreased in France, it is just as much as misery as before, but without social help –they are working-) Chirac, as usual, will camouflage it behind a screen of smoke.
Because, at this end of the day, as they use to say in this side of the Channel (they qualified as English), who will pay for this right? They want to decrease the taxes, to save money and tomorrow we shave for free...

People are obviously prepared to live in tents to work in Paris. They could go to any other part of France, or to cheaper climes. But they do not.

If they did all suddenly leave, many jobs would be unfilled. So, if the jobs are required, the wages would have to increase. Then people doing them could live in houses.

London is the same situation. The markets demand what they think that they can get. If more people went elsewhere to work, house prices would be lower, or wages would be higher to entice back the staff.

The fact that we have state run schools and other utilities creates distortions in this. Otherwise schools in good areas would pay teachers more as the cost of living is so much higher, or the school would get into difficulties. The rich people in the area would have an invested interest in a good school for their children and would subsidise this. If the school does fold, then the area is far less desirable and prices will decrease to reflect this.

Ossified problems are in part to do with people willing to grumble but do little more, allowing the status quo to continue.

~:smoking:

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Originally Posted by Brenus

Some decided to highlight the homeless problem in providing RED tents to the homeless, action which makes them visible.

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I'd say this is the key indeed. There have been tents for the homeless for quite a while now. Making some parts of the city look like miniature squatter camps, miniscule third world favela's. Médecins du Monde (not to be confused with Médecins Sans Frontières) provided these tents for the homeless.

The brilliance of the recent action of the 'Enfants de Don Quichotte' is that they've put up whole camps of annoyingly bright red tents smack in the middle of the most expensive neighbourhoods in French cities. In Paris right along the canal saint-Martin. :beam: Now THIS will get things moving... :laugh4: :laugh4:

Then in a second brilliant move they filled these camps not just with the miserable, the helpless, the rightless - those whose sole concern is their addiction, psychological affliction or their next meal - but with assertive activists. :2thumbsup:

Now combine this hardship of the Paris upperclass - who must endure the plight of having the view from their million euro appartment spoiled - with the upcoming elections, and voilà, the sudden burst of activity of the politicians is explained.
Just exactly how a right to housing should be enforced though, well, that can wait till after the election...

Must say Louis it sounds like the charity knows how to play politics like a master. Maybe one of their chaps is going to run for a place someday soon?