Adequate housing and human dignity

The Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) Dr. Michel E. Abs delivered this speech at the monthly webinar organized by MECC on “Adequate Housing and Human Dignity”, on Thursday 25 January 2024.

Dr. Michel E. Abs

Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC)

There is no dispute that housing is the basic framework within which the family grows well and naturally, and its quality is the basic criterion for determining the living standard of a society.

Our popular culture abounds with sayings about the home, its importance, and its role in contentment, stability, and social progress. At home, a person finds comfort after a tiring day at work or study. There, he relaxes and retires to himself, searching for a comfort that he has missed throughout the day, wherever he may be, at work, at university or at school.

In order for the home to be a place of comfort and self-development, and not a place for family quarrels and disputes, it must have the specifications that make it a suitable place to live. Note that this condition is a basic condition, but it is not a sufficient one or nullifying other conditions.

The dwelling must be sufficient for the size of the family, enjoy comfort and even luxury conditions, preserve the family’s privacy, allow the privacy of all family members, be healthy, free from starch and dampness, and be provided with all elements of basic services related to health, hygiene, and prevention. Its residents are not to be exposed to problems that may come from the surroundings, such as noise, dust, and unhealthy odors, its ventilation is appropriate and it is subject to regular maintenance, as an individual house or as a building, and that public services in the building are available, as well as guarding and security.

What I listed above are the conditions for a typical house, which I can call a respectable residence, far from excessive extravagance and luxury. This is the minimum “stone”-house- that must accommodate the “souls” - the people- who want their children to grow up normally, to study, to entertain themselves, and to receive their friends at home in the presence of their families.

This model house is a house in mind for a very large number of people, Lebanese, Arabs and Westerners, because a large number of people cannot secure such a house for their families for clear economic reasons, accompanied by the absence of an effective housing policy in a large number of countries in the world, add to that the residents of refugee camps which numbers are steadily increasing in our country, more than in any other region in the world, and they live in tragic conditions that are far below the acceptable human standard.

There are many areas that the socio-economic researcher explores and is shocked by the status of living there and asks himself: How do people live in such areas which we can call, at the very least, a pile of stones where some people live.

In addition to the houses and their conditions, there are the conditions of the roads, sidewalks, parking lots, electricity and water networks, the sewage system, and other components of urban life, and I emphasize the “urban”, because the problem is less severe in rural areas due to the structure of urbanization and housing that are different from the city.

Moreover, it is useless to provide decent housing from the inside and to place it in a destroyed, polluted and neglected environment, where public life is miserable. Accordingly, we must consider that the concept of adequate housing is beyond the direct, micro-social home, and includes the macro-social dimension, that is, urban planning in its broad sense, which includes life in the neighborhood or village.

The biggest problem in Lebanon, and this may apply to many regions in the Arab world, is that the modern urban growth areas that have emerged around the major cities, in many cases, have not formed a new vital expansion area for the city, but rather a new and modern belt of misery, which will gradually turn into a an old and sagging residence belt due to the lack of maintenance, given the economic conditions of the residents of these areas. Is it acceptable that some of the newly developed suburban roads are a right of way granted by a property owner to his neighbor, instead of these areas being the result of a general urban planning policy through which the state anticipated urban growth?

Isn't it a shame for us that there are decades of progress between the enemy settlements that occupy our land and our urban sprawl?

Tonight's symposium is the first in a series of symposiums on housing and dwelling, through which we aim to sensitize our religious and civil leaders to the seriousness of the housing situation in our countries, and urge these leaders to establish new residential areas, planned with the state-of-the-art means, that will renew the urban fabric in our countries and provide a decent life for the families that will be created by population growth. This will constitute a primary barrier to the migration of our youth in search of a better life, knowing that such projects generate income and create large numbers of jobs. Sociological studies have shown that securing housing is an essential element in preventing migration and urging people to stay.

Housing, along with medical care, education, and job security, constitutes the primary challenge that the MECC poses to our society and needs to be crystallized in projects, of which only a simple, initial phase has been completed due to the high cost, but the next phases are coming.