Assisted Community Housing Initiative in Dhaka

This research highlights how the strength of a group of mobilized slum dwellers was harnessed to bring change in their housing conditions. The community, with active support from a non‐government organization, was able to develop housing for themselves. The article demonstrates that assisted community housing as an approach is capable of offering a sustainable housing development solution in a resource‐constrained country like Bangladesh.

The article aims at examining the context and the process and identifying the operational barriers, and it explores the prospects of this approach in a specific context. Through elaborating on the community efforts, the article sheds light on the difficulties that were encountered by the NGO and the community, making this a shared struggling experience. It identifies that with a few policy-level interventions and changes in operational practices of different government agencies, a supportive environment can be created which will foster NGO’s stewardship to make this approach produce more equitable, efficient, affordable, and above all, sustainable housing development for the urban poor.

Also Read: Sustainable Housing for Resilient Communities: The Challenges of Affordability