• Introduce measures to ensure affordability of housing, such as regulations on rent levels and other housing-related costs, and ensure that increases in rents, mortgages and other forms of housing finance do not threaten people’s ability to satisfy other needs. • Introduce standards to ensure housing is “adequate”, setting out requirements of habitability, location and availability of services, facilities and infrastructure, in line with the international standards. 7.3 INCLUSION AND PARTICIPATION • Prohibit and address discrimination, including racial segregation and discrimination against women in housing. • Ensure that all program and any allocated resources linked to housing prioritize those who are worst off. • Ensure consultation and participation of people, particularly those belonging to disadvantaged groups on decisions that will affect their lives and during the formulation of a housing strategy. • Ensure that public participation in the design and implementation of the housing strategy is preceded by the provision of all relevant information necessary for effective participation. This information must be in a form and language/s that are accessible to all including the most disadvantaged. 7.4 ASSESSMENTS, MONITORING AND REMEDY • Establish effective mechanisms to assess and monitor the housing situation in the country. These mechanisms should identify people who lack a minimum degree of security of tenure, the homeless, households headed by children, people who live in inadequate housing, migrants, refugees and other groups who face the greatest barriers in realizing their right to adequate housing. Governments must act on this assessment and ensure that the rights of these groups are respected, protected and fulfilled in the course of the designing and implementing any housing strategy. • Ensure that any urban renewal, infrastructure and housing construction projects are allowed to proceed only after a detailed environmental and human rights impact assessment, including impacts of individuals and families resident in the project area. • Set-up effective mechanisms for monitoring all authorities, at national and local levels, to ensure that they act consistently with the state’s international human rights obligations. • Provide for effective remedies and reparations to all people, whose right to adequate housing has been violated, including through recourse to the courts where necessary. EFFECTIVE HUMAN RIGHTS-BASED HOUSING STRATEGIES SUBMISSION TO THE UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON ADEQUATE HOUSING AS A COMPONENT OF THE RIGHT TO AN ADEQUATE STANDARD OF LIVING, AND ON THE RIGHT TO NON-DISCRIMINATION IN THIS CONTEXT Amnesty International 8