Housing in the World: Issues and Context

It is estimated that 900 million urban dwellers and over one billion rural people now live in overcrowded and poor quality housing without adequate provision for water, sanitation, drainage or the collection of household waste. (1) More than 1.2 billion people still have no access to safe drinking water, and 2.4 billion do not have adequate sanitation services. (2) War, occupation, discrimination, development projects, privatization and economic reforms have evicted millions from their rightful homes and lands. The global number of slum dwellers is projected to increase five-fold between 1990 and 2020, the period during which the Millennium Development Goals seek to reach one hundred million slum dwellers with significant improvements to their lives. (3) The privatization of social housing and of utilities, as well as the greater scarcity of social services, land and other resources under the constraints of economic globalization and neo-liberal policies, has affected lower-income groups in most of the world and has led to new types of insecurity. Public policies in a globalizing world increasingly reduce housing to a commodity, and measure the value of human settlements in business terms, excluding hundreds of millions of low-income families from habitat policies, plans and programmes. Governments have limited capacity to influence the housing market, and there are insufficient low-cost houses available for sale or rent. This situation generally worsens in times of economic recession, foreign occupation or internal conflict.

Popular sectors have developed their own strategies and mechanisms to resolve their vital needs. Some social groups are driving innovative, self-managed initiatives that are capable of addressing the complex challenge of satisfying their needs and of integrating the management of their productive, cultural and community-living processes. The most visible results of the organized struggle for land, housing and basic services are homes, housing complexes and popular neighbourhoods, produced and managed under the direct control of the social organizations and communities living there.

For the poor, the housing issue is not resolved with increased housing stock measured in terms of, for instance, number of units or area of new housing or lengths of pipes. The struggle for housing involves an economic and social strategy of insertion in the city or in the rural environment, and is thus a struggle against poverty. It also represents the construction of a responsible and informed citizenship capable of influencing democratic management in their communities and cities. The local practices are testimonies to social effort and responsible citizenship and to struggles against marginalization, social and urban segregation, dispossession and private appropriation of common property goods.

People’s own efforts to improve their habitat do not absolve the state of its obligations to citizens and residents. Governments have a duty to refrain from forced eviction, confiscation, discrimination, corruption, withholding of services, repression of human rights defenders, and other violations. International law and the commitments by governments to development targets made at global summits, including the Millennium Summit and the World Summit on Sustainable Development, recognize the right to adequate housing and land. Although it is rare for these to be conscientiously applied, these long-established obligations and instruments of guidance for states and society remain a resource and point of reference that should be applied to all aspects of development.

(1) UN–Habitat (2003), The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements 2003, Earthscan Publications, London.
(2) UN–Habitat (2003), Water and Sanitation in the World’s Cities; Local Action for Global Goals, Earthscan Publications, London, 274 pages.
(3) UN Millennium Project (2005), A Home in the City. The report of the Millennium Project Taskforce on Improving the Lives of Slum Dwellers, Earthscan Publications, London and Sterling VA, 175 pages.