Right to Housing
Housing is a human right. In Puerto Rico, housing insecurity driven by displacement, rising costs, disasters, and systemic inequality threatens the dignity and stability of entire communities.
The ACLU of Puerto Rico works to protect the right to housing by advancing tenant protections, challenging discriminatory practices, and advocating for policies that ensure safe, affordable, and accessible housing for all. We believe everyone deserves a place to live with security and dignity.
54,915
Puerto Rico faces a shortage of 54,915 affordable and available rental homes for extremely low-income renters.
66 for every 100
Only 66 affordable and available homes exist for every 100 extremely low-income renter households in Puerto Rico.
2,096
Puerto Rico’s 2024 Point-in-Time count identified 2,096 people experiencing homelessness.
Local Protection, Safety for All
Sanctuary policies are local measures designed to protect all people in a community, regardless of immigration status. These policies ensure that municipal and state governments do not use local resources to enforce federal immigration laws, prioritizing safety, trust, and community well-being instead.
Joint Resolution of the Senate 497
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Puerto Rico, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to the defense of civil, human, and constitutional rights, supports Joint Resolution of the Senate 497, which seeks to prohibit the Municipality of Vieques, the Department of Housing, and other public entities from selling or otherwise disposing of real property in Vieques, as well as to identify mechanisms to stop the displacement of the Vieques community — including the creation of a land trust.
The ACLU grounds its position in the human right to housing and in the history of dispossession and abandonment that Vieques has suffered, first at the hands of the United States Navy and later through real estate speculation encouraged by laws such as Act 22 and Act 60; for this reason, it supports measures such as a land trust that guarantees that the land remains in Viequense hands, using the community of Monte Carmelo as a flagship project, and affirms that JRS 497 provides real alternatives for Viequense families to preserve their land and access a safe and dignified home.
Status: https://sutra.oslpr.org/medidas/147849
Status:
Activo
Sucesión Cruz-González v. Administración de Terrenos de PR
Sucesión de Eugenia Cruz González v. Administración de Terrenos de Puerto Rico (KLAN 2022-00865) is an appeal filed by a Vieques family who alleges a violation of their due process and property rights. The family argued that they had lived on the land for over seven decades and that the trial court made procedural errors by ruling against them and ordering their eviction. The family's appeal was successful, as the Court of Appeals reversed the original judgment. The Puerto Rico Supreme Court denied the government's petition to review the case. The case is currently in the discovery stage.
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