Leilani Farha


From June 2014 until April 2020, Leilani Farha was the United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing.
Farha is a lawyer and an alumna of the University of Toronto, and has been an Executive Director of Canada Without Poverty.
In her tenure as Special Rapporteur, she has focused on economic inequality and an absence of effective political representation for the poor as causes of homelessness or inadequate accommodation. Farha campaigns for the right to adequate housing for marginalized groups, she worked in Canada to implement United Nations resolutions that see homelessness as a violation of human rights. Farha has taken part in missions worldwide to examine the condition of housing rights and to develop policies to implement those rights.

Views

Leilani Farha told The Guardian about the Grenfell Tower fire. Farha fears tenants' human rights were breached because they were not sufficiently involved in the way the building was developed, notably safety issues, before the fire and are not sufficiently involved in the investigations after the fire. Farha stated, "I’m concerned when I have residents saying to me they feel they are not being heard and that they are not always being treated like human beings. Those are the fundamentals of human rights: voice, dignity, and participation in solutions to their own situations." Lack of safety over cladding used, over electrical circuits and access to the building for fire and rescue vehicles could have breached human rights to safe and secure housing, Farha stated.