UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Leilani Farha urged world leaders Thursday to address the global housing crisis at the next annual G20 summit.

Farha’s statement indicated that the new global order has treated housing as a commodity and that “the G20 leaders must ensure that financial actors and their governments are prevented from selling-off the human right to housing to the highest bidder.” Instead of building homes for communities who desperately need them, the housing industry has been treated as a commodity used to leverage capital and are catered to real-estate investors who usually have no intention to live in those homes. Policies from various governments through tax laws and regulations have favored large investors to buy out under-valued neighborhoods to price-out vulnerable communities.

Farha has continuously emphasized the importance of the global housing crisis before the upcoming G20 summit through a detailed report on adequate housing. She referenced the report in her October statement, explaining how more than “870 million human beings, live in grossly inadequate housing in informal settlements, usually deprived of water and sanitation services and left to construct shelter out of whatever materials they can find.”

Farha claims the 2008 financial crisis was linked to the growing housing crisis. This massive problem deeply impacts the global economy and should be tackled by the world leaders at the G20 summit held in Buenos Aires this late November.