The global housing crisis is not merely a failure of supply or affordability but a symptom of democratic decline, according to Leilani Farha, the former United Nations special rapporteur on adequate housing. In a new intervention, Farha argues that governments have ceded too much power to the financial sector, leaving ordinary people unable to afford a place to live and convinced that the housing system no longer serves them.
Farha draws on an encounter in Toronto in the summer of 2021, when she visited a homeless community in a park and spoke to a man who had been living in a tent for about five years. He pointed at a crane on the skyline above new skyscrapers and asked who those buildings were for, answering his own question: «Definitely not for me.» Farha says the moment captured a sentiment shared by people around the world — a growing conviction that housing is no longer tethered to their needs.
That conviction, she argues, amounts to more than a housing crisis. It is a crisis of democracy. When people cannot afford to rent or buy somewhere to live, the question that follows is whether the financial sector has been given too much power over a basic human need. Farha’s argument places housing at the centre of a wider debate about who decides how land, property and investment are allocated, and whose interests those decisions serve.
Her intervention comes as part of a broader body of work on the subject. Farha is the 2026 CBC Massey lecturer, and her argument is based on her new book, «Housing Inc.: A Global Takeover and Our Fight for Home». She is also the global director of The Shift, an international human rights organisation focused on the right to housing. Her record as UN special rapporteur on adequate housing gives her analysis particular weight in international policy circles.
The core of her case is that housing systems across different countries have been reshaped by financial priorities rather than by the needs of residents. The result is a shared experience that crosses borders: people who work, contribute to their communities and still cannot secure a stable home, while new development continues around them. Farha’s Toronto anecdote illustrates the disconnect — construction continues, but not for the people who most need it.
By framing the problem as democratic rather than purely economic, Farha shifts the debate onto questions of power and accountability. If housing markets are shaped by decisions made far from the communities affected, then the crisis raises questions about who has a voice in setting housing policy and who does not. That framing is likely to resonate in the UK and other countries where housing affordability has become a central political concern.
Farha’s intervention does not offer a detailed policy programme in the extract available, but it sets out a clear diagnosis: the housing crisis is global, and its roots lie in the balance of power between the financial sector and the public. For policymakers and campaigners, the argument is a challenge to treat housing not as an asset class but as a foundation of democratic life.