El derecho a la vivienda en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires : breve análisis de la jurisprudencia y su impacto en las políticas públicas

Abstract

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.