Housing rights of seniors in the process of deinstitutionalization

The primary need of human beings is housing. It involves shelter for survival and protection of the human dignity, simply a place to live in the home. Housing provides a privacy and overall a sense of personal space. The adequate and an appropriate housing forms the core of housing rights. When older person loose his/her functional capacities the adequacy of home is reduced and when lives his/her home and goes to the institutional care, some important dimensions of these rights are lost. It is estimated that in the EU around 1 million aged people live in long-term care institutions where they are segregated from their communities. Such institutions were originally created to provide care, food and shelter, but by now evidence has shown that they cannot ensure person-centered services and appropriate support according to the needs of an individual aged person. Ensuring the rights of seniors with declining functional capacities to integrity and independency is substantially reduced when they move from community-based homecare to the institutional long-term care. In its recent documents the European Union recommends to Slovenia to start the process of deinstitutionalization of residential nursing homes and to develop community base services for senior citizens. The paper will explore if any international, European or national sources of law already oblige Slovenia to conduct deinstitutionalization. In this respect special emphasis will be on the human rights issues. European Social Charter and in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights entail rights of elderly persons to choose their lifestyle freely and to lead independent lives. On the other hand, the Slovenian Constitution does not provide for special article on rights of seniors. We believe that special consideration should be made for elderly with declining functional capacities, and thus depended on help of others, when their human rights are at the stake, also in the context of right to appropriate housing (Article 78 Slovenian Constitution). This right belongs to the catalogue of social rights, which do not operate on the basis of universally recognized minimum standards and therefore their vagueness and flexibility could affect their effectiveness. However, due to vulnerability of seniors with declining functional capacities unsuitable housing conditions could result also in breach of their civil rights, such as personality and privacy rights. Therefore the absence of proper actions of the state could result in the breach of states binding constitutional commitments.