Reports to the United Nations

The Westcourt Centre works closely with Edmund Rice International - a human rights NGO based in Geneva – to highlight the issue of homelessness via the mechanisms of the United Nations.

In May 2017 and again in November 2022 we submitted written papers in collaboration with Homeless Connect evidencing the existence of a serious homelessness situation and calling for greater cohesion across government departments in tackling the issue of homelessness.

These reports were produced for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process which involves a review of the human rights records of all UN Member States.

We have engaged people who are currently homeless with the special procedures of the Human Rights Council and presented a number of oral and video statements to the Special Rapporteur on Housing and also the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty. At the 52nd session of the Human Rights Council in March 2023, the Special Rapporteur on Housing made a direct reference to one of our statements in his concluding remarks and how important it is to highlight the numbers of people in so called ‘developed’ countries that cannot access secure and affordable housing.

You can access some of our submissions here: