Art & the Right to Housing

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The right of housing refers to "the right to live
somewhere in peace, security and dignity."

- UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

International law defines seven dimensions of the right to adequate housing. The artwork displayed here illustrate these seven dimensions in powerful and concrete ways, connected to community experiences across the United States.

We hope these pieces will be helpful in advocacy to address homelessness and advance the right to housing.

What is the right to housing?

The most comprehensive statement of the right to housing is found in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), Article 11.

Learn More Watch "What the right to housing means to me" video

Art

The artwork below address the seven dimensions of the right to housing. Please click on each dimension to explore the relevant artwork and feel free to download and use these pieces in advocacy for a right to housing.

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  • Legal Security of Tenure

    Guaranteeing legal protection against forced eviction, harassment, and other threats.

    Home Shouldn't Depend on a Job by Amandatron5000Phd, Red Line Service artist

    The Red Line Service

    In Home Shouldn’t Depend on a Job, Amandatron5000Phd explores the precarity with which most people in the U.S. live – a paycheck, medical emergency, or other crisis away from houselessness.  

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    Do the Math by Shay Jones, Red Line Service artist

    The Red Line Service

    Jones makes the simple and compelling argument that housing costs the taxpayer less than criminalizing houselessness.  

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    None of Us Are Home Until All of Us Are Home, Red Line Service artists

    The Red Line Service

    None of Us Are Home Until All of Us Are Home: Suggests that a home is as vital as a beating heart, emphasizing that our communal health relies on everyone taking responsibility to ensure housing for all.

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    (Un)Wanted for the Crime of Needing Rest by Mercela Okeke, Red Line Service artist

    The Red Line Service

    Inspired by vintage wanted notices of the Wild West, (Un)Wanted for the Crime of Needing Rest, comments powerfully on the criminalization of everyday functions like sleeping, when these functions take place in public. Instead of addressing the lack of affordable housing units, laws like this punish individuals, leaving the inequities of the housing system in place.

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    Is My Pain Your Gain by Alexus Wilson, Red Line Service artist

    The Red Line Service

    Alexus Wilson, in addition to being a talented visual artist, is also a poet and performer. In Is My Pain Your Gain, the poem and image work together to describe the emotional cost of being unhoused, unrecognized and unvalued.

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    Impact of Poverty on the Brain by Marketta Sims, Red Line Service artist

    The Red Line Service

    Sims addresses the long-term health impacts of being without housing. The constant fatigue – what she calls the fuzziness – as if life is being viewed through a cloud, the anxiety of having to find the next meal, the condition of being unsafe as one’s normal state.

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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  • Accessibility

    Prioritizing disadvantaged groups and ensuring they have full and sustainable access to adequate housing.

    A Home Changes Everything by Tina F, Red Line Service artist

    The Red Line Service

     

    Tina F brings to the fore the way housing changes everything. Without it, everything is harder: working, focusing on mental health, focusing on physical well-being, building relationships, and feeling a sense of belonging, to name a few of the barriers that rob people experiencing houselessness of humanity.  

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    Red Tape, by Dave Scott, Red Line Service artist

    Red Tape

    Red Tape points to the enormous barriers for people seeking affordable housing in the U.S., including long waitlists, restrictions on the application process, hurdles to qualifying, as well as the proscriptive rules of management, and lack of recourse for subpar accommodations, all of which make it difficult to work, live and thrive.  

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    Never-Ending Lottery I and Never-Ending Lottery II, by Tina F, Red Line Service artist

    Lottery 

    In her pendant, Never-Ending Lottery I and Never-Ending Lottery II, Tina F demonstrates the contingent, arbitrary, chance-based system of securing affordable housing in the U.S. It also points to the exhaustion of the search process itself.

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    Change the Game by Dave Scott, Red Line Service artist


    Game

    Change the Game explores the fundamental tension between seeing housing as a real estate, income-generating opportunity, and seeing it as a human right. It asks us to consider the barriers for people seeking housing, and what it would look like if we prioritized people over profit.  

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother by Deborah Awwad, Red Line Service artist


    Game

    Awwad is a talented visual artist and singer. Here she combines her two loves by using the famous 1969 song by the Hollies, He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother (recorded a year later by Neil Diamond) to think about why particularly disadvantaged groups, here a senior who is also a Vietnam veteran, is living on the street. The beauty of the solidarity expressed here, by a disabled artist living with housing and food insecurity, is a call to action for everyone to care for one another.

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    Accessible Housing is Out of Order by Deborah Awwad, Red Line Service artist


    Game

    Deborah Awwad tackles the problem of accessibility in high rise subsidized housing, when there are insufficient funds for maintaining infrastructure, like elevators.

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    The Keys to Adequate Housing by Marketta Sims, Red Line Service artist

    The Red Line Service

    Sims identifies the factors that have served as barriers to her being able to secure and retain adequate housing. These hew closely to the seven dimensions of the UN Human Right to Adequate Housing.

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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  • Affordability

    Keeping the financial costs of housing to a level where the satisfaction of other basic needs is not threatened or compromised.

    Diminishing Housing Affordability by Hannah Smaglis

     

    • Diminishing Housing Affordability by Hannah Smaglis

    The canvas is divided into sections, each representing the various living expenses individuals need to spread their income between every month. As housing costs increase, it becomes more and more difficult for individuals to afford the other resources that are required for their survival.

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    Wheel of Affordable Housing by Efren Paderes, Red Line Service artist


    Wheel


    Wheel of Affordable Housing evokes a popular game show to highlight the random, luck-based system of securing affordable housing in the U.S. and the reality of being waitlisted for decades.  

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    No Affordable Housing is our Discontent/Affordable Housing is our Content by Amandatron5000Phd, Red Line Service artist

    The Red Line Service

    Amandatron5000PhD makes a clear, graphic statement of the problem of the lack of affordable housing.

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    The Myth of the American Dream by Efren Paderes, Red Line Service artist

    The Red Line Service

    Paderes' print points to the government failure to help all people achieve a home.   

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    Raising Minimum Wage by James Lee Williams, Red Line Service artist

    The Red Line Service

    Williams’ Raising Minimum Wage focuses on the fundamental three-fold problem of rising housing costs, gutting of public aid, and stagnation of wages in creating the problem of houselessness in the U.S. Williams suggests that raising the minimum wage is one important step to ending houselessness.  

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    Bare Minimum by Dontay Lockett, Red Line Service artist

    The Red Line Service

    As a child, Lockett was raised on other people’s couches, in motels, in shelters and in foster homes. He knows only too well the devastating impacts of inadequate minimum wages on families struggling to keep intact. Using anime techniques, he pictures the way inadequate wages cause even the strongest among us to crack under the economic pressure, breaking apart the family home, and the family unit alongside it.

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    Payrolled by Tracey Christmas, Red Line Service artist

    The Red Line Service

    Tracey Christmas’ central motif is a check on which she shows a simple calculation: that although the UN Human Right to Adequate Housing suggests that a home is affordable when a person pays no more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities, she – along with many others – is paying 75% of her income on housing. This means relying on soup kitchens for food, it means health issues going unaddressed and it means always living with the anxiety of housing precarity.

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    NO Location, Location, Location by Tracey Christmas, Red Line Service artist

    The Red Line Service

    Leveraging a typical real estate slogan, Christmas addresses what it’s like to be without housing when there are so many buildings standing empty, a feature of fast gentrifying areas.

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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  • Location

    Safe proximity to employment options, health care, food sources, schools, childcare, and other social facilities.

    The Centrality of Housing Location by Hannah Smaglis

     

    The Centrality of Housing Location by Hannah Smaglis.

    This piece focuses on the importance of locating housing in an area that provides residents with access to fresh food, health care, and public transportation. As more housing is torn down to erect highways, individuals who rely on public transportation are deprived of access to the essential resources to survive and thrive.

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  • Availability of Services

    Facilitating services essential for health, security, and comfort. 

    Public Toilets are a Right Not a Priviledge, Red Line Service artists

    Red TapeRed Tape

    Public Toilets are a Right Not a Privilege: "In cities where public restrooms are scarce or restricted to paying customers, people experiencing houselessness are forced to use unsuitable spaces as restrooms, affecting the health of the entire community. Controlling basic bodily functions of unhoused people dehumanizes us and fails to address the underlying issue."

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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  • Habitability

    Providing adequate space and protection from cold, damp, heat, rain, wind, and other threats to health and physical safety.

    Nature is Not Adequate Shelter, Red Line Service artists

    The Red Line Service

    Nature is NOT Adequate Shelter: The trees symbolize the nurturing qualities absent in the systems houseless people encounter, making a powerful plea for housing for all families.

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    Homeless and I'm Still More Than Your Statistics by Red Line Service artists

     

    Climate Gentrification by Hannah Smaglis

    Homeless and I'm Still More than Your Statistics: Highlights the inadequacy of housing for those living with housing insecurity. "On the left, a generic infographic person represents dehumanizing statistics. On the right, a child with autism covers his ears because the assigned housing is loud and unsuitable for his needs."

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    Cry for a Sweet Home, by Nanu, Red Line Service artist

     

    Climate Gentrification by Hannah Smaglis

    Cry for a Sweet Home is an urgent plea for understanding that people seek basic habitability and a call to action to support the desperate nature of their need.

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    Abandoned Houses, Abandoned People by Dontay Lockett, Red Line Service artist

     

    Climate Gentrification by Hannah Smaglis

    Lockett suggests that living in condemned buildings and on the streets, while depending on dumpster diving for necessary sustenance, does not constitute habitability.

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    How is it Habitable? (Whitey's on the Moon) by Marcela Okeke, Red Line Service artist

     

    Climate Gentrification by Hannah Smaglis

    Okeke’s personal experience with the health issues surrounding black mold and lead piping points to the fact that habitability is more than just any form of shelter. It must also be safe to be considered adequate.

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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  • Cultural Adequacy

    Housing construction, building materials, and policies that enable the expression of cultural identity and diversity of housing.

    Climate Gentrification by Hannah Smaglis

     

    Climate Gentrification by Hannah Smaglis

    This piece highlights the climate gentrification crisis within Miami. As floods and other severe weather persist from climate change, many developers are seeking to move their real estate from the shorelines further inland. This push inland threatens to displace many communities across Miami, eroding housing accessibility, cultural adequacy, and security of tenure. This piece symbolizes the strength communities bringin coming together to address this problem.

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    Housing is a Right by Sam Caldera, Red Line Service artistGame

    Caldera’s Housing is a Right demonstrates the anger and frustration of being marked racially or culturally, and having to give up cultural traditions, practices, and preferences to be considered qualified for housing. 

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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    Perils of Gentrification by Nanu Bengue, Red Line Service artistGame

    Bengue’s sweet evocation of a vibrant neighborhood, rich in cultural diversity, shows what is lost when people lose their homes and are edged out of neighborhoods because of gentrification.

    Red Line Service is a community of artists with lived experience of being unhoused - for more information: Red Line Service

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Installations

Below are photos from previous art and right to housing exhibits. Please also see a web story on the collaboration with Red Line Service artists to advance this initiative.

Art Exhibition: The Human Right to Housing

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