Housing and Land Rights Network

Based in New Delhi, Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN) is a 25 year-old organization that works for the recognition, promotion, and realization of the human rights to adequate housing and land, which involve gaining a safe and secure place for all individuals and communities, especially the most marginalized, to live in peace and dignity.

The organization aims to achieve its goals through research, capacity building, human rights education, engagement with government institutions, and network building – at the local and national levels. Over the last 25 years, HLRN has been working intensively on multiple dimensions of housing with a human rights approach, incorporating the principles of indivisibility of human rights, non- discrimination, and gender equality.

Our Vision

Every human being, irrespective of their caste, religion, gender, class, age, and ability, has the right to adequate housing and land, which involves the right to live with dignity, security, and safety.

HLRN believes that through strategic interventions grounded in the ‘human rights to adequate housing and land approach,’ it can slowly bring about change through increased awareness, human rights education, and the development of tools, monitoring indicators, and improved policies.

The long-term changes that HLRN envisions are:
•   The creation of a larger team of well-informed housing rights advocates across the country drawn from among the homeless, landless, and inadequately-housed population;
•   Improved access of women to housing and land, including improved recognition of their rights in policy and practice;
•   Improved abilities of affected communities to access justice;
•   Improved monitoring of state policies and programmes on housing, including of implementation of international/UN recommendations to India;
•   Greater policy attention to the issue of forced evictions, displacement, and resettlement;
•   A distinct improvement in state delivery of schemes for the homeless, including through solutions along the ‘housing continuum’; and,
•   Increased awareness of human rights, in particular housing rights issues, among grassroots communities and those working on their behalf.

Our Mission

HLRN’s objectives are threefold: (i) To play a catalytic role in building and sustaining civil society platforms/campaigns towards the realization of the human rights to adequate housing and land for the most vulnerable; and, (ii) To work with government in a an effort to influence law, policy, and administrative processes and practices at local, national, regional, and international levels by evolving strategies and activities at the thematic, comparative (theoretical), and case-specific (practical) levels. (iii) To support communities in Delhi and in the states to access their entitlements; support them in case they need to approach the court; and also to build their own capacities to advocate and lobby for their own rights and entitlements from government and other key stakeholders. This includes those living in informal settlements as well as the urban homeless.