Making Right to Housing Work: Learnings from YUVA’s Approach of Enabling the Right to Adequate Housing

Abstract

This article presents a model of human rights practice in India, specifically focused on the right to adequate housing for marginalized groups. It details this through the praxis of a 40-year-old non-profit organization called Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA). The article presents the approach, rooted in the specific socio-legal contexts of Indian cities where YUVA works. Four key elements from YUVA’s model of work are elaborated: a) facilitating access to citizenship rights to enable individual claim-making; b) formation of people’s organizations towards collectivization; c) formation of wider city- and state-level alliances towards policy and advocacy shifts; d) strategic inputs to drive inclusion in urban plans. Although the insights embody the experience of a single organization, they offer several lessons for wider human rights practice with respect to realizing the right to housing in developing country contexts, especially in the Global South.