The future of housing is uncertain.
A house is our main sanctuary, yet one in six people on Earth do not have access to adequate accommodation. About 200 million people are homeless.
With coronavirus causing economic slowdowns and even large-scale evictions, housing will become a greater concern. In many cities, apartments remain vacant, but rents do not seem to fall. Governments in south Asia and parts of Latin America are evicting people who live in slums, citing health hazards. For many in Brazil’s favelas or India’s bastis, their overcrowded neighbourhoods became their biggest health threat.
For our next transnational chat, we want to understand what is happening to the spaces we have the right to live in. How can we ensure houses are provided for everyone? How do we make cities affordable and inclusive?
To answer these questions, we’ve invited experts from all around the world to look for constructive solutions to a global crisis in housing.
We also want to hear from you. How has your living situation changed in the past months? What does that mean for the cities billions of us call home?
Join us on 28 August 2020 at 1pm GMT to engage with experts in housing and in local communities from different countries.
Our confirmed guests:
Leilani Farha
For six years, from June 2014 until April 2020, Leilani Farha was the United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing. Farha is a lawyer and executive director of Canada Without Poverty. She is the author of Forced Evictions: Global Crisis, Global Solutions. Twitter: @leilanifarha
Saskia Sassen
Saskia Sassen is a Dutch-American sociologist and author of the book Cities at War: Global Insecurity and Urban Resistance. She is Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University and Centennial visiting Professor at the London School of Economics. Sassen coined the term "global city". Twitter: @saskiasassen
Theresa Williamson
Theresa Williamson is a city planner and founding executive director of Catalytic Communities, an NGO that has worked to support Rio de Janeiro’s favelas through asset-based community development since 2000. CatComm produces RioOnWatch, an award-winning local-to-global favela news platform. Most recently, CatComm developed and launched the Covid-19 in Favelas Unified Dashboard. Twitter: @greencities
Mukta Naik
Mukta Naik is an architect and urban planner. She is currently a fellow at New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research. Her research interests include housing and urban poverty, urban informality, and internal migration, as well as urban transformations in small cities. As an urban researcher she delves into links between housing, informality and migration in India. Twitter: @muktanaik
Diane Yentel
Diane Yentel is the president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. She is a veteran affordable housing policy expert with over two decades of work on affordable housing and community development. She has been vocal against recent mass evictions across the US. Twitter: @dianeyentel
Shivani Chaudhry
Shivani Chaudhry is the executive director Housing and Land Rights Network, India. She has been the co-convenor of the National Forum for Housing Rights and executive committee member of Urban Rights Forum: With the Homeless. She was a member of India’s Ministry of Rural Development’s Task Force on Land Reforms, and contributed to the draft national land reform policy. Twitter: @shivani_chdhry
Marco Dorado
Marco Dorado is a senior Advisor at Covid-19 Eviction Defense Project . He is also a fellow with the National Development Council. Marco was the Denver Director of the Urban Leaders Fellowship and Manager of Business Operations at the University of Denver’s Latino Leadership Institute.
Jhono Bennett
Jhono Bennett is a researcher on urban planning in South African cities. The co-founder of 1to1 – Agency of Engagement, he is currently enrolled at the Bartlett School of Architecture as a doctoral candidate in the TACK / Communities of Tacit Knowledge: Architecture and its Ways of Knowing network. His practice-led research interests are driven by issues of inclusive design approaches, spatial justice, critical positionality, and urban planning in South African cities. Twitter: @JhonoBennett
Josta van Bockxmeer
Josta van Bockxmeer is the housing correspondent at De Correspondent, who writes about housing mainly in the Netherlands. Twitter: @Jostaevelien
Adheema Davis
Adheema Davis is a Durban-based architect, is passionate about the role that architecture can play in social change. As a member of the local architectural institute, she is committed to using her platform to challenge norms, promoting inclusion. Twitter: @adheemadavis
Things to note
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