ABSTRACT
Home in the city is in urgent need of defending. Chapter 5 is about home on the Heygate Estate, London, and what international law has to do with it. The story plays out in three parts. One is played by the ‘financialised home’, which is at the centre of spatial and social disruptions and displacements linked to regeneration. Another is played by Heygate residents, who gave testimonies after their ‘removal’ from the estate in which they articulated what home meant to them. The final part is played by the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on the Right to Adequate Housing, who give their own account of home. The chapter argues that while the right to housing mounts an important challenge to financialisation, it does not go far enough. The Heygate residents’ testimonies tell us that ‘home’ means much more than an individual’s right to dwell or the right to shelter. The chapter suggests that enriching the right to housing with the concept of home could make the right more inclusive of the experience of the urban housing poor and reorient international law’s homemaking work in the city towards a different understanding of freedom.
