The evaluation of public housing schemes in Kerala highlights the un-sustainability in socio-cultural factors as one of the main pitfalls of the housing programmes. Since housing has got more personal significance than social interests in the perception of an individual, socio-cultural sustainability in housing primarily depends on the altitude of the inhabitants towards their houses. Therefore policies for sustainable housing should give importance in ensuring household participation in all the levels (from planning to finish) of the building process. This could help in considerably improve their self-reliance and lead to better living standards. Ensuring community participation is the next important milestone in this aspect of sustainable housing. Community involvement can accelerate the social significance of housing development by ensuring, integrating and maintaining infrastructure facilities and rescuing the low income households from the evils of social exclusion.

The ability of the households to own as well as maintain their houses plays an equally important role in the sustainability of housing development as the economic sustainability of the housing programmes. Government support for housing could help the poor households in supplementing their efforts, only if they arc self-reliant to meet their immediate daily needs. Improving and maintaining consistent income should be the prior step in satisfying their housing needs. The next step is facilitating or empowering the poor through enhaloing strategies to improve their access or command over various resources, necessary for housing. Strategies and housing policies at this stage should be able to tackle the problems connected with land tenure, subsidies, accessibility to easy loans, resources and other obstacles connected with building process. Effective policy measures should be taken for implementing the different objectives of economic sustainability in housing.

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