The lack of appropriate housing is evidently linked to situations of poverty and economic underdevelopment at the national level (UN Habitat, 2005). Consequently, housing is a pressing problem in developing countries that have undergone or are undergoing rapid demographic growth and rural-urban migration processes. As a result of rapid urbanization, poor newcomers to cities settle in informal and/or illegal neighborhoods located in distant or hazard zones, without basic services and insecure tenure.