La normativa constitucional e internacional sobre el derecho a la vivienda digna,
resulta clara en términos dogmáticos y preponderante en el plano fáctico.
En este sentido, la Constitución Nacional, a través de su artículo 14 bis, reconoce
expresamente este derecho. Bidart Campos afirma “el derecho de los individuos a una
vivienda digna va mas allá de su carácter programático, porque obliga al estado a procurar
mediante políticas diversas que todos los hombres puedan obtener un ámbito donde vivir
decorosamente, sean o no propietarios de él” (Bidart Campos, 1989).
En línea con esta opinión, la Corte Suprema de Justicia de la Nación (en adelante
CSJN) dictó una sentencia paradigmática en el caso . “Q.C.S.Y. c/ Gobierno de la Ciudad
de Buenos Aires s/amparo” (Fallos 335:452, sent. del 24-04-2012), en la cual sostuvo la
relevancia que tiene el artículo 11.1 del Pacto Internacional de Derechos Económicos,
Sociales y Culturales (PIDESC), incorporado por el art. 75 inc. 22, con igual jerarquía a la
Constitución Nacional, en tanto toda persona tiene el derecho a un nivel de vida adecuada,
incluyendo la vivienda. Asimismo, el Tribunal afirmó que, dentro del sistema de fuentes de
la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, se encentran la normativa constitucional y local de
las cuales “se desprende el reconocimiento de un derecho de acceso a una vivienda digna y
el deber de protección de sectores especialmente vulnerables como las personas con
discapacidad y los niños en situación de desamparo (...)”. En consecuencia, cabe destacar
que lo establecido en la Carta Magna, no se trata de “meras declaraciones sino de normas
jurídicas operativas con vocación de efectividad”.
Enmarcado el plexo normativo y tomando el criterio operativo que la CSJN dispuso
en su sentencia contra el GCBA a los efectos de dar cumplimiento y garantizar el derecho a
la vivienda digna a partir del fallo “Q.C.S.Y. c/ Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires
s/amparo”, lo que se pretende es verificar si el citado precedente contiene un mandato de
concreción del derecho a la vivienda y, en caso afirmativo, si ese mandato ha tenido algúnn impacto en las políticas públicas de la CABA y finalmente, si ese impacto se ha reflejado en
políticas públicas suficientes.
La presente propuesta aportará conocimiento de la cuestión mediante una estrategia
metodológica de triangulación concurrente de corte mixto, lo que nos permitirá corroborar
resultados y efectuar validación cruzada entre datos cuantitativos y cualitativos.
The constitutional right to decent housing and adequate habitat must be understood
in a broad manner based on its correspondence with other basic human rights (Defensoría
del Pueblo CABA, 2015). In this understanding, it should be noted that housing is a
universally recognized human right. Therefore, its guarantee is an irreplaceable requirement
for the effective realization of freedom, social justice and human dignity.
The evidence gathered by numerous reports shows that the problem that plagues a
large number of inhabitants in the City in terms of access to housing has different aspects.
This is clear, e.g. in the research document "Derecho a un hábitat digno en la infancia" (Right
to a decent habitat for children), by the Observatorio de la Deuda Social Argentina - UCA
(Argentine Social Debt Observatory - UCA). On the one hand, it is affected by the income
situation of households and situations of poverty, vulnerability and socio-economic
exclusion. On the other hand, the issue is affected by the high value of urban land, and also
by the exaggerated rental fees where the real estate market plays its own game. And a third
aspect is evidenced by the absence of active public policies, taking into account the different
sectors with different problems in accessing decent housing.
"In the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, the housing problem plays a central role
in the lives of the great majority of its inhabitants, which is expressed in the multiplicity of
existing informal and/or precarious habitats and in the difficulties faced by the sectors of
scarce and medium resources to have access to decent living conditions". (Defensoría del
Pueblo CABA, 2015).
The data yielded by the Second Popular Census carried out in April 2019
(https://www.cels.org.ar/web/2019/07/segundo-censo-popular-de-personas-en-situacionde-calle-en-la-caba/) indicate that at that time there were 7,251 people living on the street.
Of that total, 5,412 people do not have access to shelters, nor to establishments with an
agreement with the City Government, so they sleep on public roads, which raises the risk to
their psychophysical health. 38.1% of these people have health conditions, particularly
respiratory difficulties, a condition that currently generates greater vulnerability to the
coronavirus. In addition, 10% of the homeless are over 60 years of age.
It should be noted that 80% are male, 19% are female and 1% declare themselves to
be transvestites or transsexuals. Among these figures, 871 are children and 40% are pregnant
women. Also, a large percentage of women said that they or their children had suffered
violence as an explanation for having left their homes and the reality of not finding any state
response of accompaniment for survivors of gender-based violence.
56% of the people who answered the census suffered some type of institutional
violence in relation to state agents, from police to hospital personnel
(https://www.cels.org.ar/web/2019/07/segundo-censo-popular-de-personas-en-situacionde-calle-en-la-caba/).
These data have been increased by the incidence of the Covid-19 pandemic that has
the world on edge since March 2020.
In this context, bearing in mind, on the one hand, what is enshrined in the applicable
normative plexus, in particular General Comment No. 4 of the ICESCR and the provisions of the ruling "Q.C.S.Y. c/ Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires s/amparo" and, on the
other hand, the indexes provided by the statistics on homeless people and other situations of
housing vulnerability, the following questions arise: What impact did the ruling "Q. Were
they sufficient to reach the operative standard established in observation Nº 4 of the ICESCR
and the "Q.C.S.Y" ruling? Does the right to decent housing involve other fundamental rights
inherent to human dignity? What role did the agencies in charge of working on this issue
have?
This paper aims to answer the questions in the preceding paragraph and to examine
whether or not public policies aimed at guaranteeing the right to decent housing by the
Government of the City of Buenos Aires were sufficient or not.
