Introduction

There is growing acknowledgement that poverty, especially in urban areas of poorer countries, is much more than just income poverty captured through poverty lines. There is increasing consensus that poverty analyses should also take into account vulnerability, deprivation and wellbeing (Moser, 1995). These features of urban poverty are a set of relationships and a process, rather than a state (Rakodi, 1995).

Several manifestations of poverty arise from this wider definition, one of the most visible ones being the appalling housing conditions of the urban poor in low-income countries. It is estimated that:

More recently, the State of the worlds cities 2001 report notes that:

Official statistics would lead us to believe that 92% of the urban population in developing countries have access to water, and 80% to sanitation. However, independent analyses (for example, UNCHS, 2001a) provide damning condemnation of the reliability of these figures. Moreover, it also casts grave doubt over the appropriateness of the definitions of what is ‘safe’ and ‘adequate’ (UNCHS, 2001a, pp 122-6).

Housing is both a cause and an outcome of poverty, as it comprises differential access to resources and control over them. It is also an important component of urban social policy, since it intersects with a number of social concerns, such as livelihoods, health, gender, age, identity and citizenship.

Therefore, if deprivation underlies or extends to income poverty, what strategies should policy makers and planners adopt in addressing housing poverty? A large part of the problem concerns either a lack of understanding of the nature of the problem or an unwillingness to deal with the complexities of the living reality of the poor.