After two years of advocacy efforts by the Working Group to End Homelessness (created by the Vincentian Family at the UN and supported by IGH) the United Nations Commission on Social Developments 58th Session met in February 2020 for 10 days of debate and side events discussing the Priority Theme:

“Affordable housing and social protection systems for all to address homelessness”.

As a result, on Wednesday 19th February the UN issued its first resolution on homelessness as a mainstream UN policy issue. The resolution outlines a definition of global homelessness for the first time, calls on member states (nations) to collect data on demographics related to homelessness, and encourages governments to improve access to affordable housing. This new focus on homelessness will play a key role in ensuring that “no one is left behind” in the final decade of action towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

It is a watershed moment in global advocacy and elevates homelessness into the UN ecosystem, serving as a platform for larger efforts. The resolution as it stands will be approved later this summer by UN ECOSOC and later this fall by the UN General Assembly. 

The Depaul Group, IGH and the members of the Vincentian Family at the UN have been central to delivering this important landmark. The definitional statement reflects the IGH Typology of homelessness and much of the language of the resolution itself borrows heavily from submissions made by the IGH during the process.

What are next steps?

• Incorporate the issue of homelessness into UN DESA’s High Level Political Forum in July 2020

• Plan a summer 2020 Member State convening with the UN Office of Partnerships to demonstrate how they can include homelessness under SDG 11.1 in their Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs)

• Leverage relationships with the UK Permanent Mission to the UN to bring homelessness measurement to the UN Statistical Commission

• Build on our growing relationship with UN Habitat as experts in homelessness

• Map out an advocacy pathway for an indicator on homelessness in the next set of SDGs planned for 2030 and galvanize our international network along that pathway to build strategic relationships with the Member States most influential to that process.

Thank you

Particular thanks to Dame Louise Casey and Mark McGreevy (DPI/IGH/FHA), Lydia Stazen and all the staff at IGH who were the policy backbone of this initiative, the FHA team (the Make It Count Campaign was a very successful contribution), Fr Guillermo Campuzano and all the Vincentian Family members at the UN (without whom this wouldn't have been possible) and, of course, the Working Group to End Homelessness who brought together all agencies at the UN. In addition, many thanks to the UK Diplomatic Service at the UN who supported us every step of the way.

Background: Since the inception of the IGH as a partnership between DePaul University and Depaul International (DPI), we have had the ambitious aim of influencing the global debate on homelessness in key agencies such as the United Nations. Four years ago the Vincentian Family at the UN agreed (as part of its commitment to supporting the Famvin Homeless Alliance) to work together to elevate the issue of homelessness as a policy priority. As a result, in 2018 Mark McGreevy (Group CEP DPI) addressed the 56th Commission for Social Development as a representative of the Civil Society Forum. At the gathering he argued that homelessness was an “emerging poverty” overlooked by the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and that, as a result, homeless people were being left behind in poverty. The intervention opened up an opportunity for homelessness to be discussed as a “priority theme” at the UN for the first time in its 75-year history.