A housing strategy for the urban poor

Abstract

is based on the hy,10th sd:: that tbere is a certain roup of people in our society who havo boer over looked by all housinn proceduros, pro rammes and le islation. In other words this r:Jroup of people who occount for more than 50 ' of tro urban po­ pulation have become 1 invisibles 1 to the formal framed-work of housing. Due to constraints imposed throu h procedures, standzrds and lerislation and also due to the lack of accessibility to resources, these poo le suffer from Jreat hardship and do not have the freedo to improvise shelter thot is within their means. This dissertation attempts at answering three fundanentle q estions arisin0 f om this hypothesis 0HO are these invisillo peoplo? IHY are they inhibited from procedures,standards,'2.:;gfslation and c::ccessi­ bility to resources? and HO can ue ta e neasures to recognise and improve people's efforts to house themselves. Part one of this desertation tries to indentify these people in termf of their ecomomic and housin condition. In the analysis of the economic c n­ dition in Chapter 1 the urban poor aro identified in terms of their employment which is a direct function of the economic dualism. Chapter 2 discusses the fallacy of applying physi=al s andards to measwre ood housing and ood hbusin is jud:ed in terms of its usefulness to the users. However in order to assess the maJnitude of the problem cc ven­ tional quantitative methods of statinc the housin0 problem is also used ln this chapter. The analysis of I'HY this earlier said roup of eople arP invisible to tho formul frameJo--k is dealt -uith in part two.