affordable housing for the urban poor, slum area housing

1. MODULE 1 - PART III
HOUSING PROBLEMS IN INDIA,
AFFORDABLE HOUSING, SLUMS
AR 17-96-4 – URBAN HOUSING

2. Housing Problems in India
In India, the problem of housing is acute as there is a wide gap between the
demand and supply of houses. This gap is responsible for growth of slums in cities
where crores of people live in most unhygienic and unhealthy conditions.
Meaning of Housing
• Generally speaking, housing may be defined as an architectural unit for
accommodation in order to protect the occupants from the forces of nature.
• But in wider meaning housing covers all the ancillary services and community
facilities which are essential to human well being.
• In addition to the physical structure, it includes water supply, sanitation, and
disposal of water, recreation and other basic amenities of life.
• Thus housing can be defined as a component architectural structure within a
total system consisting of various settlement variables.
Distinction between House and Home
• House represents only an architectural structure for accommodation.
• Home includes the family relationships and bonds of affection which are
nurtured within this architectural structure.
Introduction

3. • The problem of housing in India has both quantitative and qualitative
dimensions.
• According to 1991 census, the housing shortage was 18.5 million dwelling
units, out of which 13.7 million for rural areas and 4.8 million for urban areas.
• 41.6. % was living in pucca houses, 30.9% was living in semi-pucca houses and
27.5% was living in kutcha houses.
• The above table indicates that rural housing shortage increased from 3.4
million in 1961 to 20.6 million in 2001.
• Urban housing shortage increased from 0.9 million units to 10.4 million units
during the same period.
• Total housing shortage increased from 4.3 million to 31.0 million dwelling units.
• The rate of housing construction in the country is around 3 houses per
thousand populations per year as against the required rate of 5 houses per
thousand populations.
Magnitude of the Housing Problem

4. • The homeless population contributes only marginally to the housing shortage,
considering the size of the homeless population in the country in 2011 was only
1.77 million (0.15% of the total population), slightly less than what it was in the
previous decade, as seen in the table below.
Homeless Population in Rural and Urban India in 2001 and
2011 (population in million)
• The problem becomes acute when, in addition to homelessness, the
replacement needs of houses in bad physical condition (due to age and
structural durability), as well as the ones that offer substandard living
conditions (due to the level of congestion inside the house), are also
considered.
• The nature of housing shortages in rural and urban areas is different, as the
condition of the physical structure of the house is a much bigger concern in
rural areas than in urban areas where issues of congestion need to be
addressed.

5. • The above chart shows that trends in urban population increases are
accompanied by increases in housing shortages. Despite numerous housing
programs implemented every 5–10 years, housing shortages (in absolute
terms) have been consistently increasing.
Urban households, housing stock, and housing shortages in India, 1971–2011 (million)
Urban Housing Shortage and Stock

6. • Tiwari and Parikh (2012) estimate that the total housing shortage in India is
approximately 51 million units and an additional 113 million houses will be
required if semi-permanent units are also replaced.
• This would mean that 21% of households are in urgent need of housing and
another 46% are living in inadequate housing conditions and, thus, 67% of
India need decent housing.
• Over and above these, the problem of lack of access of households to basic
services (electricity, water, and sanitation) greatly increases the challenge of
providing decent housing.
Housing Need in India in 2011

7. • Even after 70 years of planning and policy designing since independence, a
total of 53% of households do not have access to drinking water in their
premises, 53% of households do not have toilets, and 33% of households do
not have access to electricity (Census 2011).
• Although the Planning Commission estimated the housing shortfall in urban
areas to be 18.78 million housing units in 2012 (previous figure), Tiwari and
Parikh (2012) estimate this shortage to be higher by about 3 million at 21.87
million by including “nondurable” houses in their calculations (previous table).
Rural Housing Shortage and Stock
• The problem of housing shortages is more serious in rural areas (in absolute
terms) than in the urban centers due to the size of the rural population in India
(69% of the total population), of which 17% (28.9 million) are in urgent need of
houses (next figure).
• Housing shortages in rural areas have almost been stagnant (except in 2011),
though the number of households has doubled in the past 4 decades.
• This indicates that, with the availability of land in rural areas, construction of a
house is easier, although the quality of construction has been lacking.
• According to the estimates of Tiwari and Parikh (2012) (previous table), 59% of
the shortages in rural area are due to the bad condition of the physical
structures (nondurable and obsolete) and 37% is due to congestion, which is
contrary to the pattern in urban areas where congestion is a bigger challenge
than the quality of structures.

8. Rural households, housing stock, and housing shortages in India, 1971–2011 (million)

9. Qualitative Aspect of Housing Problem
• About 80% houses in rural areas do not have basic amenities like safe drinking
water, bathroom, toilets etc.
• Ninth Five year Plan has recorded the inter state variation in housing shortage.
There is a large concentration in a few States. For example Bihar accounted
for one third of the housing scarcity followed by Andhra Pradesh, Assam, U.P.
and West Bengal.
• In 2000, about 48.7 million people were living in urban slums in unhealthy
conditions.
• According to Ninth Five-Year Plan, 18.77 million houses are kutcha houses,
which are thatched houses made of mud, straw and bamboos, and are
unable to face natural disaster like cyclone and flood etc.
Stock vs Shortage
• 27% of the shortages in urban areas are due to the existence of physically
unfit structures (nondurable and obsolete) and that 69% of the housing
shortages in urban areas are attributed to congested living conditions.
• This not only poses questions about the quality of life in Indian cities but also
about overpriced houses, compelling households to adapt to congestion.
• The addition of new housing stock in the market has not reduced shortages,
implying that the target consumers for the new stock are different from those
households who are creating the market demand for housing, and the stock is
unaffordable even for the targeted consumer group, which leads to lesser
absorption and higher vacancy rates.

10. Urbanization Causing Housing Shortage
• Massive urbanization, increasing income levels and changing demographics,
has been increasing pressure on transportation, housing, land, and other
urban services to accommodate the future population.
• In spite of decline in overall population growth, urban population growth
continues to be almost twice the annual national population growth rate.
• Urban population in India may reach 600 million by 2031 (over 50% of the total
population), from 377 million in 2011 and the total number of cities is expected
to rise to 87 (from 50 in 2011).
• The urban share of the GDP is projected to increase to 75% in 2031 from 62-
63% in 2009-2010. (The High Powered Expert Committee (HPEC), 2011.
• Consequently, there is a dire need to improve the quality of life in our cities
and to address the current and anticipated future shortage of housing along
with other infrastructure deficit prevalent in our urban centers.
Housing Stock

11. Housing Stock Scenario for EWS and LIG
• EWS and LIG has a 96% share of total housing
shortage of 18.78 million units.
• EWS and LIG typically have annual housing
income ceilings of INR 100,000 and INR
100,000-200,000 respectively (MHUPA).
• The rural housing shortage is estimated at
43.67 million units, of which more than 90%
households are below poverty line.
• To meet this housing shortage, the government
estimated at least 16.29 million new affordable
housing units were needed, whereas 12.67
million houses were needed to decongest
existing homes with undesirably high
occupancy.
• Nearly 1.3 million units are currently in various
phases of construction across top eight cities in
India contributing to 19% (2.47 million units) of
the total demand, with an additional 1.0
million units expected to be launched by 2018.
• To meet the shortage, in 2011 the government estimated a total capital
requirement of INR 849,440 crores, of which 67% is estimated for building fresh
housing, 15% for providing infrastructure to new houses, and the remaining for
upgrading infrastructure and addressing congestion for existing homes.

12. Constraints in Developing Housing Stock in India
• Limited availability of land: With growing population and expanding cities,
there is paucity of land that can be developed for creating new housing
stock. Incoherent development standards and zoning regulations result in
haphazard development and irregular distribution of population densities. Due
to these factors, development in core urban areas becomes expensive
making it tougher to create large-scale affordable housing stock in cities.
Hence, affordable housing projects are generally developed in the peripheral
areas of the city, where such projects can be financially viable considering
the lower cost of land, but such projects are usually not well connected and
serviced by public transportation and urban services. This raises daily
commuting costs adding to the overall expenses at a household level,
thereby negating the whole purpose of creating affordable housing for a
particular section of the society.
• Inaccessibility of home-buyers to financial institutions: Financial exclusion of
the vulnerable and weaker sections from the formal banking system limits their
prospects of buying or building their own homes. Lack of proper
documentation and/or collateral for obtaining loans, and/or in some cases,
lack of clear titles for the target house to be purchased act as deterrents.
These constraints, limit the scope of an individual to purchase a new home or
make the necessary infrastructure improvements to preserve the existing
homes from deterioration.

13. • Private sector participation in providing low-income housing: Private sector's
participation in the creation of low-cost housing stock in India has been
limited due to the reasons such as limited margins, longer time frames for such
projects, rigid institutional and regulatory frameworks, etc. Further, many
developers have been facing liquidity crunch because of restricted access to
bank lending, post the global financial crisis of 2008. A slowdown in residential
sales amidst high interest rates on housing loans has also added to their woes.
The only available avenue for raising capital has been by way of private
equity (PE) or similar sources, which is generally an expensive method of
raising capital. This has also restricted their ability to develop more housing
units.
• Issues of land entitlement: In India, whilst it is compulsory to register sale of
land, the Indian Registration Act of 1908 does not require the registration
authority to verify the history of the land or the land ownership of the seller
(Ramanathan, 2011). In addition, the Act does not require all land related
transactions (for example, inheritance partitions, mortgages and agreements
to sell, land orders, etc.) to be registered. This offers little protection to the
buyer of the land parcel and also leads to land litigation complications that
make development a hassle by increasing time and money spent on land
acquisitions. When land is a scarce resource, legal complications only limit
accessibility to available land parcels for development, which further impacts
the creation of housing stock.

14. • Rigid & tedious regulatory framework: The existing regulatory framework
involves lengthy, time-consuming procedures and approvals for developing
new housing stock. As a result, construction timelines are usually extended
and by the time this stock becomes available, the requirement increases
massively considering the significant rise in population. In addition, urban
planning is rigid and does not provide necessary guidelines and mechanisms
for development activities, to generate the desired density of development,
which is financially, socially, and ecologically viable.
• Infrastructure and service delivery gaps: The Twelfth Five year plan (2012-2017)
estimates an annual expenditure of INR 108,168 Crores, INR 50,780 Crores and
INR 1 lakh crore for urban water supply, urban sewerage, and urban
transportation respectively, to meet the current needs. According to NHB's
estimates, at least 16.29 million homes require new infrastructure (water,
sewerage, electricity, sanitation, and transportation facilities among other
necessities). The absence or inaccessibility to basic services restricts the
locations where new housing stock can be created.
• High construction costs: One of the major determinant of total housing cost
other than land is the cost of the construction itself. As the raw material costs
increase over a period, it becomes very difficult to provide housing at
reasonable costs.

15. Private Sector Participation in Housing Stock
• Due to the incapability of the government to keep
pace and address the massive housing needs,
many large and small private developers entered
the market and offered residential housing units
catering to the urban population.
• About 1.3 million units were launched by the
private sector across top eight cities in India
between 2008 to March 2015, which is an average
of around 185,000 units per year.
• However, in the recent years, unit launches seem to
have declined significantly and private developers
are cautious, launching new projects only after due
consideration of the prevailing market conditions.
• As shown in the pie chart, although private developers contributed
significantly to the creation of housing stock in the recent years, due to the
reasons mentioned earlier, their focus was mainly on mid and high-end
segments and not the affordable segment, leading to a significant demand-
supply mismatch, widening the gap in the affordable segment every year.
• As private developers are already facing financing issues amidst subdued
demand and restricted access to debt funding, Private Equity (PE) players
have emerged as an important alternate source to meet the funding
requirements. It is the need of the hour for the government to attract private
sector into the affordable housing segment.

16. • Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a
household income at or below the median as rated by the national
government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability
index.
• Rapid population growth leads to increased need for affordable housing in
most cities.
• The availability of affordable housing in proximity of mass transit and linked to
job distribution has become severely imbalanced in this period of rapid
regional urbanization and growing density convergence.
• In addition to the distress it causes families who cannot find a place to live,
lack of affordable housing is considered by many urban planners to have
negative effects on a community's overall health.
• Affordable housing challenges in inner cities range from the homeless who
are forced to live on the street to the relative deprivation of vital workers like
police officers, firefighters, teachers and nurses unable to find affordable
accommodation near their place of work, and are forced to live in suburbia,
commuting up to two hours each way to work.
• Lack of affordable housing can make low-cost labor scarcer (as workers travel
longer distances).
Affordable Housing
Introduction

17. Public vs Private Housing and Affordable Housing Criteria
• The central government has launched an ambitious project to provide
'housing for all citizens by 2022,' with a strong emphasis on affordable housing.
• Various public and private stakeholders interpret the term 'affordable',
differently, leading to a mismatch between the demand and supply.
• In most cases, the affordable segment targeted by the private developers is in
the LIG and the cost of one unit is beyond the reach of both EWS and LIG,
who are neglected as they are not viewed as attractive target groups.
• Affordable housing as defined by the government is more relevant for EWS
and LIG whose annual housing income ceilings are less than INR 200,000.
• According to MHUPA, the equated monthly installments (EMIs) for the
affordable housing should not exceed 30-40% of the owner's gross monthly
household income, and the unit sizes should be between 300-500 sf.
• Various strategies must be developed and implemented concurrently to
engage all players, and the public and private sectors must work together to
overcome the housing deficit and create large-scale housing stock.
Affordable Housing Scenario in India

18. Achieving ‘Housing for All”
• A recent report by the Deepak Parekh Committee (2008), constituted by the
MHUPA, proposed 5% as the affordable cost for housing for BPLs (Below
Poverty Line) and reduced the figure from 30% to 20% for EWS, but retained it
as 30%–40% for LIGs and MIGs.
• The Deepak Parekh Committee, along with defining the size of the housing
units, also specified the standards for a decent house and gave the ambitious
definition of “adequate shelter” as something meaning “more than a roof over
one’s head: It also means adequate privacy; adequate space; physical
accessibility; adequate security; adequate lighting, heating and ventilation;
adequate basic infrastructure; -- all of which should be available at affordable
cost” (Deepak Parekh Committee 2008, 7).
• The gap for LIGs between income and house price is extremely high.
• The gap is widest for BPLs, which constitute approximately 22% of the
population of India (Planning Commission of India 2013). BPL persons cannot
even afford to pay for adequate food, let alone fill the gap for a house,
assuming that most of the BPL population are homeless or live in extremely
dilapidated housing conditions).
• Wadhwa (2009) assumes that the BPL class can at best afford to pay up to 5%
of their monthly income as rent or EMIs for housing (next table). This amounted
to merely Rs134 in 2009 when average market rent in tier-I cities was Rs7,1484
for a house of 28 m2, which is nearly 53 times higher than what BPL households
can afford.

19. Defining Affordability for Various Income Groups and Housing Shortage in
Urban India, 2007–2010

20. • For EWS and LIG, the average market rent of Rs7,148 is 13 times and 7 times,
respectively, what they can afford to pay for housing. Even the MIG class is
unable to afford a small house of 28 m2 and, thus, housing is observed as
affordable only for approximately 16% of the population (Jones Lang LaSalle
2010) belonging to higher middle-income and higher income groups.
• So far, the definition of affordability took into consideration only house size. For
example, affordable houses are defined as “dwelling units with carpet area
between 21 m2 and 27 m2 for EWS and 28–60 m2 for LIG (MHUPA 2013, 4) and
the sale prices of these houses are decided by states and/or union territories.
Based on market price, a house between 21 m2 and 27 m2 would cost Rs1.85
million–Rs 2.38 million whereas the affordability of the target segment would be
Rs97,000–Rs119,000. Targeting to provide home ownership to the EWS segment,
while keeping it affordable for them, would thus mean that almost 95% of the
cost of a house would be subsidized by the exchequer, the gap further widened
by the absence of formal financial instruments for lower income classes that also
lack wealth, and hence don’t have the capacity to make an initial down
payment, or pay monthly installments.
• Thus, the aim of “housing for all” becomes unachievable and thus most of the
housing policies have failed to provide ownership to the target income class
and have rather ended in serving as an alternate investment option for higher
income groups.
• The discussion above indicates that the formula to achieve “housing for all” is to
derive different types of housing that offer variations in sizes of houses, structural
quality, infrastructure services, and tenure types to meet the requirements of
various income groups while also making housing affordable.

21. • The Registrar General of India has adopted the following definition of slum for
the purpose of Census of India, 2001: A compact area of at least 300
populations or about 60-70 households of poorly built congested tenements, in
unhygienic environment usually with inadequate infrastructure and lacking in
proper sanitary and drinking water facilities.
Slums
Origin and Growth of Slums
• Before the 19th century, rich and poor people
lived in the same districts, with the wealthy living
on the high streets, and the poor in the service
streets behind them.
• But in the 19th century, wealthy and upper-
middle-class people began to move out of the
central part of rapidly growing cities, leaving
poorer residents behind, thus creating slums.
Poor living in the service streets
before the 19th century
• One example of slum creation was United States’ first slum, Five Points, in 1825,
named for a lake named Collect, which, by the late 1700s, was surrounded by
slaughterhouses and tanneries which emptied their waste directly into its
waters. Trash piled up as well and by the early 1800s the lake was filled up and
dry, on which Five Points was built, occupied by successive waves of freed
slaves and immigrants, poor, rural people leaving farms for opportunity, and
the persecuted people from Europe pouring into New York City.

22. Causes of Slums
Slums sprout and continue for a combination of demographic, social, economic,
and political reasons. Common causes include rapid rural-to-urban migration,
poor planning, economic stagnation and depression, poverty, high
unemployment, informal economy, colonialism and segregation, politics, natural
disasters and social conflicts.
Rural–Urban Migration
• Agriculture has become higher yielding, less disease prone, less physically
harsh and more efficient with tractors and other equipment. The proportion of
people working in agriculture has declined by 30% over the last 50 years,
while global population has increased by 250%.
• Many people move to urban areas primarily because cities promise more
jobs, better schools for poor's children, and diverse income opportunities than
subsistence farming in rural areas.
• However, some rural migrants may not find jobs immediately due to lack of
skills and the increasingly competitive job markets, leading to financial
shortage. Due to less low-cost housing, rural–urban migrant workers cannot
afford housing in cities and eventually settle down in only affordable slums. As
rural migrants continue to flood into cities for higher incomes, they thus
expand the existing urban slums.
• A portion of people also migrate to cities because of their connection with
relatives or families and intend to live with them in slums.

23. Urbanization
• Rapid urbanization drives economic growth and causes people to seek
working and investment opportunities in urban areas. Urbanization creates
slums because local governments are unable to manage urbanization, and
migrant workers without an affordable place to live in, dwell in slums.
• Another type of urbanization does not involve economic growth but
economic stagnation or low growth, which involves a high rate of
unemployment, insufficient financial resources and inconsistent urban
planning policy, and an increase of 1% in urban population will result in an
increase of 1.84% in slum prevalence.
• Urbanization might also force some people to live in slums when it influences
land use by transforming agricultural land into urban areas and increases land
value. Before some land is completely urbanized, there is a period when the
land can be used for neither urban activities nor agriculture. The income from
the land will decline, which decreases the people's incomes in that area. The
gap between people's low income and the high land price forces them to
look for and construct cheap informal settlements, creating slums.
• Many slums are part of economies of agglomeration in which there is an
emergence of economies of scale at the firm level, transport costs and the
mobility of the industrial labor force.
Poor House Planning
• Insufficient financial resources and lack of coordination in government
bureaucracy are two main causes of poor house planning, which, along with
lack of affordable low cost housing encourages the supply side of slums.

24. • Due to failure in coordination among different departments in charge of
economic development, urban planning, and land allocation, the urban poor
gradually become marginalized in the housing market where few houses are
built to sell to them.
Colonialism and Segregation
• Colonialists created single-occupancy bedspaces to supply labor, which
attracted the laborer's families to the urban center to avoid back and forth
rural to urban movement, and as they could not afford to buy houses, slums
were thus formed. Nairobi in Kenya is an example.
• Some slums were created because of segregation imposed by the colonialists.
For example, Dharavi slum of Mumbai was created when the British colonial
government expelled all tanneries, other noxious industry and poor natives
who worked in the peninsular part of the city and colonial housing area, to
what was back then the northern fringe of the city, which used to be a village
referred to as Koliwadas. This settlement attracted no colonial supervision or
investment in terms of road infrastructure, sanitation, public services or
housing. The poor moved into Dharavi, found work as servants in colonial
offices and homes and in the foreign owned tanneries and other polluting
industries near Dharavi. To live, the poor built shanty towns within easy
commute to work.
Poor infrastructure, social exclusion and economic stagnation
• Poor families that cannot afford any form of affordable public transportation,
end up in slums close enough to the place of their employment.

25. • Economic stagnation creates uncertainties and risks for the poor,
encouraging people to stay in the slums. A poorly performing economy
increases poverty and rural-to-urban migration, thereby increasing slums.
Informal Economy
• Informal economy is that part of an economy that is neither registered as a
business nor licensed, one that does not pay taxes and is not monitored by
local or state or federal government.
• Countries where starting, registering and running a formal business is difficult,
tend to encourage informal businesses and slums.
• Slums thus create an informal alternate economic ecosystem, that demands
low paid flexible workers, something impoverished residents of slums deliver.
• Without a sustainable formal economy that raise incomes and create
opportunities, squalid slums are likely to continue.
Labor, Work
• Research has identified labor as the main cause of emergence, rural-urban
migration, consolidation and growth of informal settlements.
• Work has a crucial role in the self-construction of houses, alleys and overall
informal planning of slums, as well as constituting a central aspect by residents
living in slums when their communities suffer upgrading schemes or when they
are resettled to formal housing.
Social Conflicts
• In recent years, numerous slums have sprung around Kabul to accommodate
rural Afghans escaping Taliban violence.

26. Poverty
• Urban poverty encourages the formation and demand for slums. With rapid
shift from rural to urban life, poverty migrates to urban areas. The urban poor
arrives with hope, and very little of anything else. They typically have no
access to shelter, basic urban services and social amenities. Slums are often
the only option for the urban poor.
Politics
• Political parties relying on votes from slum population oppose the removal and
replacement of slum, and politics prevent efforts to remove, relocate or
upgrade the slums into housing projects that are better than the slums.
• Pre-existing patronage networks, in the form of gangs, political parties or
social activists, inside slums seek to maintain their economic, social and
political power. These social and political groups have vested interests to
encourage migration by ethnic groups that will help maintain the slums, and
reject alternate housing options even if the alternate options are better in
every aspect than the slums they seek to replace.
Natural Disasters
• Major natural disasters in poor nations often lead to migration of disaster-
affected families from areas crippled by the disaster to unaffected areas, the
creation of temporary tent city and slums, or expansion of existing slums.
• These slums tend to become permanent because the residents do not want to
leave, as in the case of slums near Port-au-Prince after the 2010 Haiti
earthquake, and slums near Dhaka after 2007 Bangladesh Cyclone Sidr.

27. The location of 30 largest "contiguous" mega-slums in the world. The numbers show
population in millions per mega-slum, the initials are derived from city name.
An integrated slum dwelling
and informal economy inside
Dharavi of Mumbai.
Makoko, one of the oldest
slums in Nigeria, was originally
a fishing village settlement,
built on stilts on a lagoon.

28. Effects of Slums
Vulnerability to Natural and Man-made Hazards
• Slums are often placed among the places vulnerable to natural disasters such
as landslides and floods, such as slopes in cities located over mountainous
terrain difficult to reach, on banks or on stilts above water or the dry river bed
in cities located near lagoons, or on lands unsuitable for agriculture, near city
trash dumps, next to railway tracks, and other shunned, undesirable locations.
• The ad hoc construction, lack of quality control on building materials used,
poor maintenance, and uncoordinated spatial design make them prone to
extensive damage during earthquakes as well from decay. These risks will be
intensified by climate change.
• Fires are another major risk to slums and its inhabitants, with streets too narrow
to allow proper and quick access to fire control trucks.
Unemployment and Informal Economy
• Due to lack of skills and education as well as competitive job markets, many
slum dwellers face high rates of unemployment, causing them to employ
themselves in the informal economy.
• Examples of licit informal economy include street vending, household
enterprises, product assembly and packaging, making garlands and
embroideries, domestic work, shoe polishing or repair, driving auto or manual
rickshaws, construction workers or manually driven logistics, and handicrafts
production.

29. • Examples of illicit informal economy include illegal substance and weapons
trafficking, drug or moonshine/changaa production, prostitution and
gambling – all sources of risks to the individual, families and society.
Violence
• Crime is one of the main concerns in slums, and empirical data suggest crime
rates are higher in some slums than in non-slums.
• Rape is another serious issue related to crime in slums. In Nairobi slums, for
example, one fourth of all teenage girls are raped each year.
• Slums have the worst crime rates in sectors maintaining influence of illicit
economy such as drug trafficking, brewing, prostitution and gambling, where
multiple gangs fight for control over revenue.
• Factors such as unemployment that lead to insufficient resources in the
household can increase marital stress and exacerbate domestic violence.
• Slums are often non-secured areas and women often risk sexual violence
when they walk alone in slums late at night. Violence against women and
women's security in slums emerge as recurrent issues.
• Armed violence (gun violence) in slums leads to homicide and the
emergence of criminal gangs.
• Domestic violence against men also exists in slums, including verbal abuses
and even physical violence from households.
Infectious Diseases and Epidemics
• Slum dwellers usually experience high rate of disease, with reports of cholera,
HIV/AIDS, measles, malaria, dengue, typhoid, drug resistant tuberculosis, etc.

30. • Factors increasing rate of disease transmission include high population
densities, poor living conditions, low vaccination rates, insufficient health-
related data and inadequate health service.
• Poor water quality, a manifest example, is a cause of many major illnesses
including malaria, diarrhea and trachoma.
• Slums have been historically linked to epidemics, and are considered a major
public health concern and potential breeding grounds of drug resistant
diseases for the entire city, the nation, as well as the global community.
Child Nutrition
• Child malnutrition is more common in slums than in non-slum areas. In Mumbai
and New Delhi, 47% and 51% of slum children under the age of five are
stunted and 35% and 36% of them are underweighted. These children all suffer
from third-degree malnutrition, the most severe level, according to WHO.
• Widespread child malnutrition in slums is closely related to family income,
mothers' food practice, mothers' educational level, and maternal employment
or housewifery, and mothers' faulty feeding practices, including inadequate
breastfeeding and wrongly preparation of food for children.
Other Non-communicable diseases
• A multitude of non-contagious diseases also impact health for slum residents,
like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease,
neurological disorders, and mental illness.
• Factors like poor sanitation, low literacy rates, and limited awareness make
diarrhea and other dangerous diseases extremely prevalent.

31. House Area and Congestion
• A decent house with adequate privacy is a prerequisite for a healthy built
environment. A big household size and less household income compel
toleration of a congested living environment, which is further exacerbated by
unaffordable housing prices. Usually, one room is shared between 2–3 users
(average size of a house is two rooms and average household size1 is 4.9
persons) (Census 2011), demonstrating congested living.
• Lack of privacy is a serious concern in rural areas where 3–4 persons share
one room, more so among the lower monthly-per-capita-expenditure (MPCE)
classes where it is comparable to the situation in urban slums. Though the
overall average number of single-room users in rural areas is 2.7, which is
higher in congestion level if compared to the urban average of 2.3 users, the
ease of access to decongested housing is better in rural than in urban areas in
terms of affordability.
• The challenge of improving the condition of low-income households in rural
areas lies in the dependency of house construction activity on private builders
and developers who do not perceive that rural markets are profitable. The
onus to construct or upgrade houses in rural areas, therefore, lies with public
agencies that have been reluctant to become producers of housing stock.
• Though the average house area available per person is lowest in urban slums
(4.5 m2), second-lowest in rural areas (7.5 m2), and highest in cities (8.6 m2),
comparing rural and urban conditions across similar MPCE classes reveals that
housing is still much more spacious in rural than in urban areas, especially for
higher income groups.

32. Housing Congestion in Various Income Groups in Slums (Urban), Urban (Non-slum), and
Rural Areas in India in 2002
• Though the house area is relatively bigger in rural areas, there are challenges
of poor quality of design and construction, obsolescence, and non durability,
contributing severely to housing shortages.

33. THANK YOU