On March 4th, members of the Chicago Coalition to Protect Public Housing and residents of the Cabrini Green public housing development on the Near North Side joined members of the Poor People’s Campaign for Economic and Human Rights from Philadelphia to testify before the Organization of American States (OAS) about the Chicago Housing Authority’s (CHA) Plan for Transformation.

Under CHA’s much-touted plan, more than 16,000 units of public housing have been demolished. Less than one tenth of that number of units has been built in replacement public housing facilities.

Thousands of families who were promised they would benefit from the plan have been forced to move multiple times to even more marginalized, dangerous and poverty-stricken neighborhoods. Hundreds or perhaps thousands more have found themselves in homeless shelters.

In the view of Chicago public housing residents who testified before the OAS’ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in the nation’s capitol, this situation is an egregious violation of human rights that deserves international attention and remedy.

The testimony marked the first time US-based organizations have testified before the commission, which is charged with hearing, investigating and monitoring human rights situations in its member states in North and South America. The housing hearings focused on the US, Canada and Brazil. Though it has no actual enforcement power over governments, it is widely seen as an important tool for diplomacy, public awareness and pressure.

During her testimony, Cabrini Green resident leader Carol Steele noted that when the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing Miloon Kothari visited Chicago last spring, he said that many people in other countries believe there is no shortage of safe and adequate housing in the US. Kothari told residents that his visit to public housing proved such perceptions wrong.

Steele offered an anecdote to illustrate how the demolition and spotty redevelopment of public housing in the last decade have affected Chicagoans.

“Let me tell you about a woman I will call Mary,” she said. “Mary has eight children and was a former resident of Robert Taylor Homes. In 1996, she moved out of her unit because she was told that she could use a Section 8 voucher to get a better apartment somewhere else in the city. Yet she was not guaranteed a right to return once her unit was redeveloped. Since then, Mary and her family have moved at least 12 times because they can not find safe, stable, secure housing.”

Mary is not alone. Many other residents who are awarded Section 8 vouchers are unable to find adequate apartments that meet the conditions of the voucher, and some who have found housing report that landlord discrimination is rampant. Other residents are not even given vouchers, because they are deemed non-lease-compliant because of drug-related arrests, outstanding bills or other—often minor—factors.

Members of the Coalition to Protect Public Housing note that gentrification and a “land-grab”, as Steele put it, have influenced the way the Plan for Transformation has been carried out.

“Chicago public housing sits on some of the most desirable real estate in the city,” testified Steele, describing the 1992 demolition of the Lakefront Properties along the lake on the Near South Side. Replacement housing was never built as promised. Eventually, the housing authority and real estate developers remade the area with luxury condos and apartments.

“After it brought down Lakefront, the CHA went after us at Cabrini,” testified Steele. “But because of our knowing the history, we knew the same situation would happen to us—we would be displaced and not able to return. So we fought and fought, and took them to court to get control of our community, to prevent Cabrini from being bulldozed and thousands of poor people—our families and neighbors—made homeless.”

The groups submitted recommendations to the Commission in keeping with their mandate to promote and defend human rights. The recommendations included requests  that all OAS member states provide the commission with reports on their efforts to provide adequate housing; that a special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing be appointed by the commission; that housing rights are incorporated into other plans developed by the OAS; and that local, state and national laws be interpreted and applied in keeping with international standards on the right to adequate housing. This would include a prohibition on criminal penalties associated with homelessness and a moratorium on demolition of affordable and public housing unless replacement housing will be provided.

The recommendations also asked for member nations to increase funding for housing assistance and, “at a minimum”, stop cutting housing funds. And it noted that special notice should be given to the Commission’s commitment to protect the rights of African-descended people in general, while recognizing that the housing crisis hits many demographics, including immigrants, migrant laborers and women and children in particular.

Noah Leavitt, advocacy director of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs and an organizer of the campaign, explained in a blog that, “The commission has no inherent enforcement mechanisms. However, it can request information from governments…In addition, a declaration that the United States has violated the poor peoples’ rights could create the foundation for a future lawsuit either against the US in an international or possibly a US court.”

The petitioners noted that numerous US and international covenants and declarations recognize housing as a human right, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Commission on Human Rights Resolution of 1993, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the American Convention on Human Rights.

Steele invited members of the Commission to tour Cabrini Green, like Kothari did.

“When you walk through the buildings the city has neglected for years, when you hear the sad stories of the residents who are still there, clinging to their homes, their communities, when you meet people like Mary and her children, you will see what I am talking about,” she said. “You will see the housing crisis, the human rights crisis.”