A housing shortage means that number of housing units available is lesser than the number of households. The deficit between the demand and supply leaves the rest at the mercy of “market forces”. Most of the new households are unable to pay for the price of a dwelling unit in the formal housing market. All those households do not have many options available to them. Some of them continue to live with their parents, resulting in overcrowding. The rest of them have no other choice but to house themselves in squatter settlements called Katchi Abadis.