By: Miranda Guedes
The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (CESCR), composed of leading global experts, provided the following framework to define the human rights to housing according to seven elements: (1) security of tenure; (2) availability of services; (3) affordability; (4) habitability; (5) accessibility; (6) location; and (7) cultural adequacy.[1] Human rights standards require that countries take progressive steps to “respect, protect, and fulfill the right, to the maximum of the country’s available resources, in a non-discriminatory manner.”[2]
Focusing on availability of services, CESCR holds that adequate housing “must contain certain facilities essential for health, security, comfort, and nutrition.”[3] This encompasses “sustainable access to natural and common resources, safe drinking water, energy for cooking, heating, and lighting, sanitation, and washing facilities, means of food, refuse disposal, site drainage, and emergency services.”[4]
Turning towards the United States, Alabama’s Black Belt is facing an epidemic, resulting from lack of access to water and sanitation. Alabama’s Black Belt, named for the rich, black soil it houses, is 25-30 miles wide across central Alabama and northeastern Mississippi.[5] This region experiences high poverty rates, low-income jobs, low homeownership rates, and lack of economic development. Experts attribute Black Belt poverty to the “exploitive economic system that persisted for many decades after Reconstruction.”[6] Specifically, in the Black Belt, a high proportion of the population is not served by public sewage and water services, triggering residents to fashion their own septic systems.[7] To date, the Alabama Department of Public Health estimates that “40 to 90% of homes have inadequate or no septic systems,” therefore causing raw sewage to accumulate in backyards.[8] Thus, this region is experiencing a resurgence of 19th century diseases, largely eradicated due to modern medicine.[9]
Furthermore, heavy rains and floods, overwhelm these weak systems, further exacerbating the sewage spilling into people’s yards and containing the region’s drinking water.[10] Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty, visited the area, stating he “had never seen such horrible sewage problems in the developed world.”[11] These conditions are cause for concern because “contaminated water and poor sanitation are linked to transmission of diseases,” including cholera, diarrhea, hepatitis A, typhoid, and polio.[12] The World Health Organization (WHO) emphasizes how inadequate water and sanitation services exposes individuals to preventable health risks.[13] Additionally, unmet sanitation needs contribute to low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression.[14]
In November 2021, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was passed into law.[15] This law “provides unprecedented funds to address the water and sewer needs for the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Agriculture” and offers hope for those suffering from lack of clean water and sanitation.[16] The Act claims that it will provide $23.4 billion for the Clean Water State Revolving Fund and Safe Drinking Water programs, $25 billion for lead service line replacement, $10 billion to address Per and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances, and $3.5 billion to support water infrastructure in Tribunal communities.[17] However, “there is still no efficient mechanism for transforming this into […] solution-focused projected in the country Black Belt.”
Furthermore, taking a regional approach, nonprofit organizations, like Dig Deep, estimate that over 2.2 million people in the United States currently do not have proper access to clean sewer and water sources.[18] Community members in these affected areas are “30 times more likely to contract diseases. [suffer from] mental health issues, [experience] loss of work, school hours, and death.”[19]
Thus, the lack of significant federal steps to either directly address the ongoing crisis in affordable water and sanitation or promote adequate solutions at the local level finds people deprived of a fundamental human right.
[1] General Comment 4, The Right to Adequate Housing (Sixth session, 1991), U.N. Doc. E/1992/23, annex III at 114 (1991), reprinted in Compilation of General Comments and General Recommendations Adopted by Human Rights Treaty Bodies, U.N. Doc. HRI/GEN/1/Rev.6 at 18 (2003) (hereinafter “General Comment 4”).
[2] Id. (noting that the government can use a wide variety of measures from “market regulation to subsidies, public-private partnerships to tax policy, to help ensure the right).
[3] General Comment 4, supra, note 1.
[4] Id.
[5] John H. Glen, EPA chief: Lack of proper waste disposal systems an “environmental injustice,” Alabama Political Reporter, (Feb. 20, 2023, 10:00 am), https://www.alreporter.com/2022/03/08/epa-chief-lack-of-proper-waste-disposal-systems-an-environmental-injustice/
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Catherine Coleman Flowers, A County Where the Sewer Is Your Lawn, The New York Times, (Feb. 20, 2023, 11:00 am) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/opinion/alabama-poverty-sewers.html
[9] Id.
[10] Id.
[11] Id.
[12] Id.
[13] World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drinking-water (Feb. 19, 2023).
[14] April M. Ballard et. al., You feel how you look: Exploring the impacts of unmet water, sanitation, and hygiene needs among rural people experiencing homelessness, and their intersection with drug use, Plos Water, May 25, 2022, at 12.
[15] Grayson McKean, Water Crisis in the Alabama Black Belt, The Boston Political Review, (Feb. 21, 2023, 1:00 pm), https://www.bostonpoliticalreview.org/post/water-crisis-in-the-alabama-black-belt
[16] Id.
[17] Id.
[18] Id.
[19] Id.
Important information very well explained
Making us aware of a big problem right here in the United States.