The Right to a Nationality and the Right to Adequate Housing adequate services can impact children’s ability to bathe, which can result in stateless children being shunned by classmates and school administrators and, in some cases, being sent home early from school. 118 Forced evictions, to which stateless families are especially vulnerable, can interrupt schooling or result in indefinite periods when children cannot attend. Due to limited options, stateless children and their families may be forced to live in isolated housing far from schools, where long commutes with limited public transportation options create further barriers to the right to education. Inadequately housed stateless persons also face barriers to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Adequate housing has been referred to as an underlying determinant of health 119 and in General Comment 14, the CESCR notes that ‘[t]he right to health is closely related to and dependent upon the realization of other human rights … including the rights to … housing’. 120 Housing conditions can greatly impact both the physical and mental health of occupants by providing or failing to provide security, privacy protection from the elements and disease, and access to services such as water or sanitation. 121 Stateless persons may fall ill due to their lack of adequate housing and may then be denied medical care both due to their inability to prove their place of residence or their nationality. Forced evictions, to which stateless persons are especially vulnerable, may expose them to violence or environmental hazards requiring medical attention, which they are then denied. The only available housing for stateless persons may be located in segregated areas without access to proper medical facilities, creating further obstacles to enjoying the right to the highest attainable standard of health. In some cases, the state may fail to provide adequate services to stateless communities, resulting in disease outbreak and other violations of the right to the highest attainable standard of health, which the state then uses to justify forced evictions based on public health concerns. While physical health is often given the most attention, the stress, uncertainty, and marginalisation stateless persons forced to live in inadequate housing face on a regular basis due to both their lack of a nationality and their housing conditions can have a serious impact on their mental health as well. Stateless persons deprived of the right to adequate housing can face denials of not just other socioeconomic rights but also the right to life. The Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing has called attention to the interconnected nature of the right to life and adequate housing by stating: Violations of the right to life have been addressed primarily in cases where direct action or deliberate omissions by States have deprived or threatened to deprive individuals of life. The failure of States to address systemic deprivations of the 118 Karan (n 84) 11. 119 Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and World Health Organization, The Right to Health (Fact Sheet No 31, June 2008) 3. 120 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No 14 (2000): The Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health (Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), UN ESCOR, 22nd sess, Agenda Item 3, UN Doc E/C.12/2000/4 (11 August 2000) 2 [3]. 121 Bret Thiele, ‘The Human Right to Adequate Housing: A Tool for Promoting and Protecting Individual and Community Health’ (2002) 92(5) American Journal of Public Health 712, 713. 257