Message from COHRE's Founder Scott Leckie Scott writes on setting up COHRE in 1991 - and what has been achieved since then
Back in the very early 1990s, after a few years of writing and travelling around the world visiting country after country, city after city and every slum I could, meeting with slum dwellers, community groups, NGOs, academics and others, it appeared increasingly obvious to me that much more needed to be done to make housing rights a reality for the world's squatter citizens. So with lots of ideas and energy, but with not more than US$200 in the bank, living in a foreign land, no real plan, no email, no staff, no budget and no clue about running such an operation, in late 1991 COHRE was quietly born in a rather smoky, 12 sq.m room, one cold autumn night in Holland's fourth largest city, Utrecht. A fax to dear Gregor Meerpohl at Misereor quickly resulted in our first grant, and we were off and running and haven't looked back since.
Having led COHRE as its Founder and first Executive Director throughout COHRE's existence, until I stepped down as ED in July 2007, has been a tremendous privilege. Being able to work with such a vast array of talented and dedicated people, both within COHRE and throughout our ever growing global network, reaching from individual evictees all the way up to Presidents and UN agency Heads, and everyone in between, has been truly rewarding. Many of these interactions are by now just distant memories, but most remain as vivid as ever; none more so than one night in the Philippines right at the beginning of COHRE's life when a single mother of three, residing in appalling conditions in Commonwealth slum in Quezon City came up to me after a talk I had given there and simply said "Thank you, for you have given us hope". I'm not sure if her hope was ever enough to improve her housing rights or protect her in the end against looming eviction, but I knew then and there that housing rights was an idea whose time had surely come and that the ideas behind COHRE would make it worthwhile.
Since its inception COHRE has been able to truly transform the world of housing rights, forced evictions, economic and social rights more broadly, and so many other areas within the ever expanding human rights domain. From helping to stop many large-scale planned evictions before they were carried out, to fundamentally improving the international legal and normative framework on housing, land and property rights, to leading the way on litigating for economic and social rights the world over, to bringing housing rights issues to the silver screen and to fully mainstreaming what was for decades only the most peripheral of human rights issues, COHRE's efforts have made and continue to make a vital difference. And yet, far too much remains to be done in a world of violent evictions, rising urban land prices and sub-prime mortgage crises.
COHRE has evolved greatly over the years, from its humble beginnings in 1991, its incorporation on 23 March 1994, and all the years since which have seen our staff numbers, our offices, our budget, and most of all our reach and impact grow ever larger and more extensive. With our programmes and projects now spanning all corners of the globe and our ability to respond to housing rights crises expanding year after year, it is my sincere hope and expectation that COHRE's best years lie ahead; for despite many a victory over the past decade and a half, the world needs COHRE now more than ever.
