positive action to meet the needs of those living in extreme conditions of poverty, homelessness or intolerable housing.163 The Constitutional Court acknowledged that housing entitlements in South Africa would be highly dependent upon context given the diverse variety of housing needs in the country. Accordingly, the Court interpreted the obligation to ensure the “progressive realization” of housing rights present in the Constitution and Article 11 of the ICESCR to mean that accessibility should be progressively facilitated by the state through examining and eliminating legal, administrative, operational and financial barriers to access over time.164 It is therefore the state’s obligation to create the conditions for access to adequate housing at all economic levels and to devise policies to address diverse groups with different needs. Although the Constitutional Court has suggested that a wide range of possible measures could potentially be adopted by the state to meet housing obligations, present barriers to housing rights in farm communities, created in part by legal disincentives, mark a departure from the path of progressive realization envisioned by the Court. Read together with the Court’s later interpretation of the meaning of “everyone” in subsequent cases concerning the expansion of rights to migrants, the government must proffer a reasonable justification for denying the constitutional right to adequate housing to non-citizens.165 While the extent of obligation is unclear under current constitutional jurisprudence, it does appear that some obligation exists and must be further developed. The right of access to adequate housing cannot be seen in isolation from other absolute rights. The Department of Housing has three different subsidy mechanisms that could be utilized for farm workers’ housing, but it approaches the provision of farm workers’ housing with caution, implying that the farm owner is responsible for providing housing.166 In 2002, the Department of Housing informed the South African Human Rights Commission that it intended to develop a strategy specifically for farm workers’ housing in 2003. Human Rights Watch found no evidence of such a strategy.167 The government’s failure to create a housing policy puts it at risk of contravening its constitutional obligation to establish measures for the progressive realization of the provision of adequate housing for everyone. 163 The Government of the Republic of South Africa v. Grootboom (2000), para. 24. Ibid., para. 45. According to the Constitutional Court other agents, such as farmers, must be enabled by legislators and other means to provide housing: “A right of access to adequate housing also suggests that it is not only the state who is responsible for the provision of houses.” (para. 35). 165 See Khosa v. Minister of Social Development (2003), para. 53. 166 SAHRC, “Final Report on the Inquiry into Human Rights Violations in Farming Communities,” pp. 44-45. 167 Ibid., p. 45. 164 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH VOLUME 18, NO. 6(A) 46