Future housing needs defined by high urban growth in AP

from Habitat for Humanity

Future housing needs defined by high urban growth in AP A Right to a Decent Home - Mapping Poverty Housing in the Asia-Pacific Region

BANGKOK, February 06, 2007 - Failure to address the real and growing housing needs of the rural and urban poor today, will have severe implications for those living in poverty in the next generation.

Currently, 60 per cent of the world's slum areas are in the Asia-Pacific region, with most having little or no access to safe water, sanitation, or the most basic amenities. By 2030, another 1.3 billion people are expected to move to urban areas, almost all of whom will be poor. Those without home and hope will not only have a huge impact on economic stability, but will increasingly define both the housing needs as well as the political agenda in the rapidly urbanizing Asia-Pacific region.

These are some of the disturbing findings in a new report, A Right to a Decent Home - Mapping Poverty Housing in the Asia-Pacific Region. Commissioned by Habitat for Humanity, the report is the first of its kind bringing together in one document statistics and research compiled from a wide range of recognized publications on general poverty. It also contains short case studies on promising current initiatives by several organizations including Habitat for Humanity. This research highlights many of the causes and effects of rural and urban poverty housing and their implications on emerging economies.

Extensive footnotes and references for further reading make A Right to a Decent Home a valuable resource for urban planners, policy makers, development organizations and aid agencies, shelter professionals and others interested in the state of housing in the Asia-Pacific region. It is a useful backgrounder for executives responsible for their company's corporate social responsibility initiatives as well as individuals with a social conscience and celebrities in search of a cause. The UN Millennium Development Goals detail a common global poverty reduction strategy for all 189 UN member nations. Access to safe and decent housing, along with proper water and sanitation are clearly articulated under Goal #7. This calls for a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2015, including reducing by half globally, those without sustainable access to safe drinking water.

"Research shows that improvements in housing directly impact all of the other poverty reduction goals," states Habitat for Humanity's Asia-Pacific Vice-President Mr Steve Weir.

"As China, India and the rest of the Asian tigers rush to the front of the global economic development race, we can scarcely afford to leave so many families behind, languishing in extreme poverty. This report maps out key constraints as well as a few bright seeds of hope for the future."

A Right to a Decent Home demonstrates how poverty and inadequate housing work cyclically: those who lack adequate housing are forced to spend money and time on shelter rather than other basic needs. Poor health and safety conditions impact child mortality and family income. Overcrowding impacts children's education - the lack of privacy especially adversely affects young girls.

The lack of access to secure home ownership - both rural or urban - results in the poor missing out on economic opportunities such as earning income from renting out rooms, operating small businesses from home or benefiting from rising property prices; in short creating assets that are taken for granted by other, better off citizens.

In its housing policy document subtitled, "Enabling Markets to Work" the World Bank called on governments to leave construction of housing for the poor to the private sector and to reduce planning regulations and controls. This policy shift defines the trend away from housing provision and toward "enabling" market-based solutions. Many of these initiatives are discussed in A Right to a Decent Home, such as housing micro-finance, community funds, incremental and progressive housing, community-based water and sanitation management, government utility component sharing models and community-based disaster response.

Habitat for Humanity is involved in several of these initiatives. Habitat for Humanity supports micro-finance programs for both incremental and progressive building. In incremental building, Habitat provides micro-financing for construction on a room-by-room basis or as small loans for the construction of foundations and walls. In progressive building, Habitat's Save & Build and Build in Stages entail the construction of multiple houses on a unit-by-unit basis. This involves low-income families coming together, each making weekly or monthly contributions until the group reaches its one-house goal, at which point, Habitat and its partners provide loans for two more houses, and construction work begins. This cycle is then repeated until all group members have a home.

Community funds are subsidized loans to groups of people in slum communities for infrastructure improvements. They differ from many micro-finance lenders in that they prioritize poverty alleviation and neighborhood development. For example, in Manila, the municipality provided utility trunk infrastructure to the community's outer boundary, the community then installs its own pipes and connections through its own funds - a "component-sharing" model.

Disasters and poverty housing are intricately linked, with poverty causing people to live in unsafe areas in substandard houses and inevitable disasters sinking residents deeper into poverty. A Right to a Decent Home cites many tragic examples in the region. As part of its community-based disaster response, Habitat has extended its concept of Habitat Resource Centers, which train people in safe and efficient self building, into a catalyst for rebuilding homes and communities after disasters. As this concept serves more people at a lower cost, it has become a key component of Habitat's disaster response program. This proved to be critical in the wake of the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Pakistan earthquake.

Habitat's work over the years has demonstrated that building homes lays an essential foundation that will help a family break the cycle of poverty and transform their lives. It is a critical step towards achieving the UN Millennium Development Goals that seek to eradicate extreme poverty. This publication is intended to serve as a resource for those that share this common vision.

Please click on http://www.habitat.org/ap/ to download a copy of the report.

About Habitat for Humanity International Habitat for Humanity International is a global non-governmental organization that welcomes to its work all people dedicated to the cause of eliminating poverty housing. Since its founding in the USA in 1976, Habitat has built more than 200,000 houses in dozens of countries, providing simple, decent and affordable shelter for more than one million people with homes they helped build and which they have paid for with affordable, non-profit loans.