Low-Cost Housing Solutions – the provision of low-cost housing for the low-income segment
The provision of low-cost housing for the low-income segment of the population is still a mega issue, not only in underdeveloped countries (UDCs) but even in the Developed countries as well.
The world population is growing swiftly, the current world population has crossed 6.1 billion and according to the United Nations (UN) Population Fund it is expected that the total world population will reach 7.9 to 10.9 billion by 2050 [HBFC, 2006].
This escalating trend is exerting massive pressure on the demand for housing and also resulting in the increase in the migration from rural to urban areas, which is worsening the availability of housing in cities particularly.
On the other hand, poverty is also a mega issue of the era, as more than one-third of the total world population are also living below the poverty line which are living in the slums and Katchi Abadis or still homeless.
The need for low-cost housing solutions is more than ever before.
So, the provision of housing is not merely a problem but the provision of low-cost (affordable) housing to this less-privileged class is the genuine issue.
There are different possible alternatives to low-cost housing solutions are available to us.
But at the same time, there are some challenges and constraints we have to face regarding the formulation and implementation of housing strategies and policies.
The major objective of this paper is to underline the different possible low-cost housing solutions.
However it is necessary to study the importance of low-cost housing, i.e. why we need low-cost housing solutions, as well as the constraints and challenges in the low-cost housing.
So, first of all we will discuss the importance of low-cost and then the constraints of the low-cost housing provisions before analysing the low-cost housing solutions.
The organization of this paper is follows as; the next section (section – II) discusses the need and importance of the low cost of housing provisions.
Section – III describes the challenges and the constraints in the provision of low-cost housing. Section – VI analyses the different possible alternate solutions to low-cost housing.
It is very important to know that, “Why the Provision of Low-Cost Housing is needed?” and “Why the supply of Low-Cost housing is so important?”
There is a huge demand and supply in the provision of housing and there is enormous unmet demand for housing all over the world.
The demand for housing is rising not only in UDCs but in the Developed Countries also.
As, according to JRF2 [2001] in Greater London in 2000-01, for example, over 41,000 eligible applications were received for such properties (low-cost housing), despite registered social landlords (RSLs) adopting a narrow marketing approach to reduce demand to manageable proportions.
(Only 1,300 new low-cost homes were funded by the Housing Corporation for this region over the same period).
Read more: Low-Cost Housing: Policies and Constraints in Developing Countries