Magazine

Policy Watch

Shelters in Beirut: Three Factors Deepening Inequality in the City

Amid the ongoing escalation and growing waves of displacement toward the capital, shelters in Beirut continue to face increasing pressure. A review of these centers reveals three key challenges: limited capacity and delayed shelter availability, the uneven geographic distribution across the city, and the heavy reliance on educational institutions as shelter sites. These patterns point to fundamental structural imbalances in the crisis response, contributing to the deepening of inequality at the level of the city.

Statement

Securing the Right to Housing and Return: An Open Letter to Officials on Tripoli’s Building Collapse Crisis

As Tripoli’s building collapse crisis deepens. This letter calls on public officials to ensure that the government’s Emergency Plan measures protect residents from long-term displacement through dignified alternative housing and guaranteed return.

Research-Based Article

Eviction in Wartime: A Reading of Old Rent Eviction Verdicts

This article explores how courts in Beirut and Zahle selectively applied an inapplicable law to fast-track legally preventable evictions, while disregarding the consequences for old-rent tenants in a country already overwhelmed by war and displacement.

Statement

Open the Empty Buildings – Public and Private- and Apply Rent Control

Thousands of displaced families are sleeping on the Corniche sidewalks, the beach, and in public squares, left without shelter. This situation is a direct result of the government’s shortcomings in its plan to accommodate the growing number of displaced people, exacerbated by Israel’s orders to evacuate more than 80 towns in the south and all of southern Beirut.

We are here to reiterate the following options for effectively responding to the escalating displacement crisis, in light of the evolving security situation and the imperative to guarantee the right to housing, which is being violated on an unprecedented scale during wars.

Research-Based Article

Is there anything left to say about Hayy el Tanak?

This article looks at Hayy el Tanak in Tripoli, not as an example or proof of randomness or disorganization, but rather as a question about the meaning of a neighborhood; for the neighborhood is not a product of chance or an architectural sin. It is, in fact, a testament to the architecture of exclusion.

Research-Based Article

The Reconstruction Framework scheduled for discussion in the government: We still have a lot of work ahead of us

Critiquing the government’s “Reconstruction Framework”, this article exposes a narrow technical approach that reduces cities and villages to figures and compensation, while overlooking vital sectors and issues. The text calls for imagining a comprehensive recovery that goes beyond addressing the aftermath of war to encompass the form of urban justice we strive for.

Research-Based Article

Tripoli or the city that falls apart piece by piece

Buildings are falling apart in Tripoli, not haphazardly, but as a logical result to the city’s policies vis-a-vis old buildings. This article presents PW’s analysis of the underlying reasons, and proposes steps for a better and fairer management of the situation.

Research-Based Article

Urbicide as a strategy: The southern suburbs of Beirut between the attacks and the urban fragmentation

Amid rubble and a fractured social fabric, Beirut’s southern suburbs bear the scars of the Israeli war, which struck homes, markets, schools, and hospitals. Drawing on data, maps, and local testimonies, the article documents the scale of destruction and raises urgent questions about urban justice and the future of the city’s reconstruction.

Policy Watch

Parliament Approves Loan for Infrastructure Reconstruction:

Between Rapid Response and Delayed Comprehensive Reconstruction

The Lebanese Parliament approved a $250 million World Bank loan to implement the LEAP project, aimed at emergency reconstruction of damaged infrastructure, restoring essential services, and managing debris, as one of the three tracks in the government’s reconstruction strategy. The loan represents a limited portion of reconstruction needs, focusing on densely populated areas, which excludes southern villages and border regions and does not cover the rebuilding of destroyed buildings. Despite its importance, LEAP remains a partial, short-term step amid ongoing delays in comprehensive reconstruction.

Investigation

Where is the Fund? On old tenants’ struggles with applications to the rent support fund

Field documentation reveals how misinformation and discretionary practices in public administrations have blocked old tenants from applying to the rent support fund and protecting their housing rights.

Policy Watch

The Government Legalizes Violations and Complicity in Environmental and Housing Damage:

The Issued Decree Authorizes Industrial Expansion in Kfour, Despite Pending Court Challenges

The government has legalized a harmful industrial expansion in Kfour, neglecting environmental and health threats and ongoing legal objections. Residents and civil society are calling on the government to withdraw Decree 1962 before more damage is done to their health, homes, and land.

Investigation

Removing encroachments from the Litani riverbed:

Water protection is a priority, but who protects the housing rights of the refugees?

The text reviews the Litani River Authority’s removal of what it classifies as “encroachments” along the river and the resulting pressures on Syrian displaced communities in the Beqaa. It highlights the tension between protecting water resources and safeguarding the housing rights of vulnerable groups.