VACANT PROPERTY TAXES AND THE HUMAN RIGHT TO ADEQUATE HOUSING
Abstract
As parties to fundamental human rights instruments, Australia and New Zealand have undertaken to provide their citizens with adequate housing, that is, somewhere to live in security, peace and dignity. Nevertheless, homelessness, which is the starkest manifestation of inadequate housing, is a significant social problem in both countries. Homelessness is one feature of an inequitable and inefficient distribution of scarce housing resources; residential properties left vacant is another. Vacant property taxes (‘VPTs’), which are gaining popularity around the world, are an obvious response to this mismatch between lack and surplus. In this article, I consider what homelessness means in Australia and New Zealand, and discuss whether VPTs respond proportionately to the lack of adequate housing.