The Right to the City facing COVID-19

The Global Platform for the Right to the City (GPR2C) joins the international and collective efforts to combat COVID-19. In this page you can find:

Right to the City Initiatives

GPR2C Assemblies

Our Communiqué

Members and Allies Right to the City Initiatives

The Right to The City moves forward! All over the world, people are fighting back! Proposing initiatives and policies to protect people from COVID-19. Such initiatives are diverse and respond in different ways to the multiple and complex effects of the pandemic. They are also being presented by different actors, from government institutions, civil society, grassroots organizations, academia and the private sector. Based on our communiqué, here we highlight some of these measures, which address key points in the fight against COVID-19 and for the Right to the City.

Protection against gender-based violence

The Secretariat of Policies for Women of the Federal District of Brazil has launched the campaign “Woman, you are not alone” with emergency services, call centers and other services to assist, shelter and protect women who are under threat of violence as a result of measures of social isolation. In Montevideo, the municipality has increased opening hours and established special services in the Women’s Commune Programme, a space that offers free care and services to women in situations of domestic violence.

Suspended evictions

The Australian government approved a six-month moratorium on evictions of commercial and residential tenants who are in financial difficulty due to the Covid-19 crisis. In Spain, evictions for non-payment of rent are paralyzed for 6 months after the state of emergency has ended. A 3-month moratorium on mortgage payments has also been approved. Both measures are aimed at vulnerable groups.

Regularized immigrants

All foreigners in Portugal with pending applications will be treated as permanent residents until at least July 1st. The measure ensures that migrants will have access to public services during the coronavirus outbreak, as well as to government aid, bank accounts, and employment and rental contracts. The measure includes asylum seekers and requires the submission of an ongoing residency application.

Guaranteed Water Supply

In Bahrain, the government will pay the electricity and water bills of individuals and businesses for three months starting in April 2020. In Colombia, nearly 200,000 families who did not have drinking water service due to non-payment have been reconnected to the water system, in addition to freezing water rates for the duration of the emergency. A similar measure was implemented in Michigan, with a moratorium on cutting off water to homes after non-payment.

Emergency Basic Income

The Brazilian Congress has launched a project for an emergency basic income of R$600 for informal workers, self-employed and people without fixed income for the duration of the crisis caused by the COVID-19.

GPR2C Assemblies: Right to the City Facing COVID-19

The GPR2C held two Assemblies on the Right to the City in the face of COVID-19 in April with the goal of sharing the ongoing initiatives to face the crisis and advance towards a common response based on social justice and human rights.

Click here to read the full minutes

Our communiqué: Right to the City Facing COVID-19

The Global Platform for the Right to the City (GPR2C) joins the international and collective efforts to combat COVID-19.

We express our commitment and solidarity with the groups most vulnerable to the pandemic, in particular the homeless, slum dwellers, people threatened by evictions, displacements and collapses of their homes due to natural or everyday occurrences, informal workers and impoverished people, particularly women, older people and dissidents of all ages who suffer multiple violences. At the same time, we express our admiration and gratitude for the health and cleaning professionals, informal waste workers, the caregivers and scientists, and the staff of markets and other basic services at this time of crisis.

The GPR2C envisions democratic, diverse, solidary and sustainable communities, understood as common habitats where all inhabitants enjoy the human right to a life with peace, security, health and dignity. The Right to the City is a collective right that emphasizes democratic management, the territorial integrality and interdependence of all internationally recognized civil, political, economic, social, cultural and environmental rights.

Given the current situation, we join the voices that claim for:

Recovering and strengthening community public services
Moving towards a care society, recognizing the particular care role of women within households and communities;
Design democratic mechanisms for a massive redistribution of social wealth and an economy at the service of life and the commons.

Read our full communiqué in PDF