Housing For Low-income Groups Research Articles

Housing Planning for Lower Income Cities with Sustainable Development Approach in Mehregan Township of Mashhad Metropolis

Housing is the most important element of the city, which is of great importance in the sustainable development of the city. Therefore, achieving sustainable housing in order to enhance and improve the quality of life of the present and future generations is a major issue. Housing from various perspectives, including architecture, construction of buildings, residential buildings, land and building costs, housing loans, housing market, housing regulations, house prices, Desirable housing, etc., can be considered. On the other hand, housing is the most important concern of the present-day human being and its most important function is economic performance. And its most important function is economic performance. The housing situation and the analysis of housing prices are of particular importance, because the main goal of urbanization is to create human settlements and, among the various uses of urban land, residential use is of particular importance. Also the share of housing is also significant in quantitative term. One of the indicators for measuring poverty is housing. Good and adequate housing is a housing that does not have too much density. And, in many cases, housing and environmental conditions are the most important factor affecting on level of satisfaction of a person in a neighborhood. Apart from the social class and economic conditions of individuals, housing is always one of the most important needs and priorities of the household. The main factors that have led to provide a place to live become a crisis, especially for low-income groups, are: Rapid population growth, a sharp increase in urbanization rates, lower household size, higher rates of profitability of the land market and housing, reduced demand for housing, reduced access rates and poor financial capabilities of the poor, the plummeting market of land and housing to the detriment of low-income groups, the reduction of land and housing supply, the lack of attention of the private sector and, ultimately, unsuccessful government policies. In spite of various experiences to address the problem of disadvantaged low-income groups, the root cause of this problem is the need to examine its structural factors. This paper has been conducted with the purpose of providing a affordable housing pattern for vulnerable urban areas with a sustainable development approach in the Mehregan township of Mashhad Metropolis detachable area using a descriptive-analytical method of applied type. The population of the study is 366 people based on the Cochran formula. Using descriptive and inferential statistics from the completed questionnaires, experts have been analyzed using non-parametric and parametric statistical methods. Since housing is a cross-domain and multidimensional domain, the attitude to it must be all-round and multi-dimensional. Hence, effective policies in the field of housing for low income groups regarding the potential of the marginal areas of Mashhad for system effectiveness will be considered. Finally, in the city of Mehregan, we can solve this problem, By drafting urban planning, architecture and housing construction in accordance with international standards and enhancing their flexibility and encouraging activities in marginalized fabric for the benefit of low income groups and changing the views and plans of urban development projects.

Investigation of informal housing challenges and issues: experiences from slum and squatter of Lahore

The twin problems of uncontrolled urbanization and shortfall of affordable housing for low income groups are the bane of almost all developing countries. This is true in case of Pakistan undergoing rapid urban transformation with 207 million population at present. According to UN resources, half of the country’s urban population i.e. more than 27 million people continue to live in informal settlements. Lahore being the second largest city, is home to 11 million people, covering more than 300 informal housing settlements in the form of slums and squatters. Adoption of informal housing is a depiction of poor governance system, showing little concerns for welfare of urban poor. This paper investigates the issues of informal housing based on field research and in-depth interviews of the residents of Karol Ghatti slum and Qalandarpura squatter. The objective of the study is to understand the complex phenomena of informal housing development by digging out respective reasons and their impacts on dwellers as a part of their daily survival challenge. Results confirm that inhabitants of slum and squatters exhibit socio-economic deprivations and lack basic infrastructure. This paper delivers a complete synthesis informal housing issues by providing social, environmental, operational and physical constructs, which can lead to thorough understanding and thus, are viable approaches to tackle the challenge of slums and squatters at a national level.

Caught between Aspiration and Actuality:

The Turkish government promoted the building of housing cooperatives as a social housing program beginning in the second half of the 1930s. While these cooperatives received government aid, they did not produce affordable housing for lower-income groups. Instead, they provided fashionable modern houses to middle- and high-income homeowners. In architectural journals, these new houses were understood and critiqued as exemplars of a specifically Turkish modern style, rather than as pragmatic solutions to a housing crisis. Caught between Aspiration and Actuality: The Etiler Housing Cooperative and the Production of Housing in Turkey analyzes the transformation of housing cooperatives from a social housing program into a method to enable middle-class homeownership by examining the story of the Etiler Housing Cooperative, built between 1952 and 1957 in Istanbul. Gül Neşe Doğusan Alexander follows the story of Etiler through a detailed examination of laws, parliamentary minutes, popular media, professional publications on architecture, maps, and other published materials.

Micro-resilience and justice: co-producing narratives of change

Significant lessons can be drawn from grassroots’ experiences of self-organizing to challenge the uneven distribution of resources and opportunities in cities. This paper examines the strategies of low-income dwellers living in squatted buildings in São Paulo, Brazil, and asks how resilience narratives can help one understand the agency of these micro-strategies across multiple scales. The city centre of São Paulo is a key site for housing movements to challenge spatial injustice in Brazil. In a context where housing for low-income groups is in short supply and characterized by highly skewed social and spatial distribution, squatted buildings have emerged since the 1990s as laboratories for alternative ways of producing the city. The paper draws from an action-research project investigating such occupations in São Paulo. Firstly, it explores the practices of individual and groups inhabiting a building known as Ocupação Marconi, focusing on its social production as a device for co-producing local resilience from the micro-scale. Secondly, it reflects on which forms of knowledge production might allow for putting such practices into focus, interrogating participatory action research as a means to facilitate resilience at scale.

Trapped by the land? Change and continuity in the provision of social housing in Brazil

Despite economic growth, institutional strengthening, improved regulatory frameworks for urban land markets and availability of subsidized financial resources for social housing, Brazilian urban development policy has continued to face challenges in providing access to housing for low-income groups in general, and families earning up to three minimum salaries in particular. In this article, we argue that state spatial policies have been severely weakened by the lack of leverage over urban land markets. In that respect, the renewed rolled-out developmental state that has followed the neoliberalization of spaces in the 1990s, as reflected in the Statute of the City, the creation of the Ministry for Cities and the launch of federal housing finance programmes represent advances, but have not been able to trigger structural change in the production of urban space.

Development of timber framed firms in the construction sector — Is EU policy one source of their innovation?

To enhance competition in the construction industry, EU policies have created and harmonised functional building codes. Moreover, many actors advocate the construction industry moves towards a lean production, process-based way of working for quality and cost reasons. Here, Timber Framed Engineering approaches are considered to have a competitive and environmental advantage. There is however underlying concerns that conservatism in the construction industry, and lack of timber engineering skills, may be obstacles to change. This paper therefore assesses whether EU construction policy innovation contributed to innovation at the firm level. Timber framed innovators in six European countries were identified, and their sources of innovation assessed. The results indicate that timber framed firms have become actors in the construction industry. Firms have made product, process and organisation innovations. All case firms have similar sources for innovation. The common factor that triggers the firms to innovate is business opportunities that arise from demographic changes in the environment outside the firm, such as environmental sustainability and affordable housing for lower income groups. To address these opportunities, the case firms implicitly recognised that traditional project and site-based construction approaches are an incongruity. The firms have consequently established in-house prefabrication, including developed of lean production processes to ensure quality as well as effectiveness. The firms have all recognised that a fundamental barrier to their business was the lack of timber framed engineering competencies in their customers' organisations. Accordingly, a business necessity for the case firms was developing construction design competencies. Firms benefited from governmental policy instruments that support timber framed R&D and knowledge transfer. However, firms also gained new knowledge from their own experiences, which they also use in their operations. Accordingly, policy instruments are not a sole or dominant source for innovation in the case firms. Nonetheless, the change in building codes has been a pre-requisite the firms' commercial developments.

Residential regeneration and adaptive reuse: learning from the experiences of Los Angeles

PurposeAdaptive reuse of older commercial buildings, particularly in countries such as the USA, has been regarded by building owners and developers as uneconomic. Retention of older commercial buildings has commonly been regarded as a barrier to progress and a hindrance to the regeneration of older urban areas. This paper aims to examine the program and legislation that is adopted to encourage the adaptive reuse of commercial buildings in the downtown area of Los Angeles (LA) in the USA, as it is considered to be an exemplar example of how a regeneration strategy makes a contribution to sustainability. It seeks to assess the effectiveness of adaptive reuse of redundant buildings as a commercially viable and effective strategy for urban regeneration that meets the criteria of sustainability.Design/methodology/approachA case example is used to examine the underlying factors that have contributed to LA being an exemplar for adaptive re‐use and its contribution to sustainability.FindingsUrban regeneration requires a vision and a continued commitment to sustainability. In the case of LA, there is clearly evidence of a commitment to sustainability through the implementation of an adaptive re‐use program. A key to this strategy's success is the offering of incentives. Such incentives are required to entice investment and involvement in the program. The ability to make commercial buildings attractive to developers as viable reuse projects relied heavily on the use of legislation that reduces code and zoning requirements and offers substantial financial incentives in the form of tax concessions. The advantages of adaptive reuse in terms of sustainability appear to outweigh the advantages of demolition and new development as experienced in LA. Certainly in terms of urban regeneration the adaptive reuse program in the downtown area appears to have been something of a catalyst in prompting investment in major developments.Originality/valueThe sharing of experiences is pivotal to learning. Such situated learning can provide clients, and industry practitioners with insights about how adaptive re‐use can be used to promote sustainable outcomes. The experiences of LA emphasize the need to consider emphasis on not only environmental and economic benefits but also issues of social equity such as low cost housing for lower income groups. Generally, the objectives of reusing old buildings appear to coincide with many of the desired outcomes of sustainability, but further research is needed to assess the viability of adaptive reuse as a strategy for urban regeneration and sustainability.

Housing, the state and the market in Thailand: Enabling and enriching the private sector *

Housing has never been high on the political agenda in Thailand. Except in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the National Housing Authority built low-cost rental apartments, successive governments have not much interfered in the land and housing market, but allowed supply and demand to meet. When it played an active role, the government would facil- itate private-sector housing development and keep interest rates low to support homebuyers. However, over the years, the number of slum dwellers in Bangkok has not decreased, while government policy may have benefited private developers more than it benefited low-income homebuyers. This paper discusses the role of the state and the market in the provision of housing for low-income groups in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region of Thailand. Successive governments in Thailand had no comprehensive and integrated housing policy; they merely launched disjointed programmes to assist low-income groups to improve their housing. More importantly, the state created conditions that enabled the private sector to produce housing at lower costs. This hands-off approach has had both positive and negative consequences. This paper reviews the roles and contributions of the various public- and private-sector actors involved in housing production in Thai- land, particularly in Bangkok. The focus of this paper is on the Bangkok Metropolitan Region, because it is by far the largest and economically most important urban area of the country.

New models for aid agencies seeking to improve housing for lowincome groups: Sida's initiatives in Costa Rica, Chile and Nicaragua

New models for aid agencies seeking to improve housing for lowincome groups: Sida's initiatives in Costa Rica, Chile and Nicaragua

New models for aid agencies seeking to improve housing for lowincome groups: Sida's initiatives in Costa Rica, Chile and Nicaragua

This paper describes three initiatives funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) to improve housing and living conditions for low-income urban households in Latin America. All three centred on supporting the development of new homes or on improving or extending existing homes although each also had other components – for instance the provision of infrastructure and community services in existing settlements and support for income generation. All three included the setting-up or strengthening of institutions that would allow the initiatives to continue after Sida funding ceased; also the pooling of resources from national agencies, municipal authorities and low-income households. They all sought to involve the private sector, and strengthen and support democratic processes. After outlining the goals and characteristics that these three initiatives had in common, the paper gives short descriptions of each programme. It then considers their performance in reaching the intended beneficiaries, in keeping down costs and in ensuring that they were sustainable, and examines the relevance of these programmes for donor assisted interventions in other countries.

Viable self-management: The FUNACOM Housing Programme of the São Paulo Municipality

This paper describes the FUNACOM Housing Programme (Municipal Programme to support Housing for Low Income Groups through self-management). More specifically, the basis of the programme, community self-management and community participation, reinforced by the involvement of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), will be focused upon. FUNACOM, designed by the Municipality of São Paulo (1989–1992), directly allocated money, needed to improve housing and infrastructure conditions, to low-income families organised in so-called community associations. They linked up with technical assistance teams who, as NGOs, assisted both in elaborating projects and organising the process of building based on self-management and mutual-help. The associations, however, were ultimately the entity which managed the financial resources and the mutual-help projects.

Administration of farmland transfer in urban fringes: Lessons from Maharashtra, India

This article examines the growing concern for urban fringe land management in the light of the legal framework and the procedure for land transfer. Rapid increases in the population have led to the growth of cities. As the lands around the city increase in importance, and as the public authorities in most of the growing cities of the developing world have been unsuccessful in supplying land for housing for lower income groups, the smaller lots outside the legal framework are gaining importance in the city land markets. As a result, large-scale transfers of lands in the fringe areas are affected. In anticipation of future profits, land developers have engaged in malpractice, including the outwitting of legislative provisions, bribing of local officials and cheating landowners. Such land transactions undoubtedly exploit landowners and defeat the objectives of the legislation meant to safeguard the interests of the ordinary citizens. This article looks at the fraudulent nature of such land transactions, along with the modus operandi of land dealers in the light of the current legal framework. In order for it to be effective, it has to check unscrupulous speculation so that the middle and lower income groups cannot be excluded from the land market.

Canadian Housing "Policy" in Perspective

Cet article présente une vue d'ensemble de l'histoire de la politique canadienne en matière de logement. Il passe en revue les origines des programmes implantés de même que les options qui furent rejetées. Il compare également la politique canadienne du logement avec les approches utilisées par les autres états démocratiques prospères du monde occidental pour résoudre leurs problèmes de logement. L'article constate que la politique canadienne du logement ne manque pas d'ironie. En effet, ce sont les programmes d'assistance à la propriété destinés aux groupes à moyen revenu et les subsides aux investisseurs privés qui émergent continuellement au milieu des demandes politiques de financement public de logements locatifs pour les groupes à faible revenu. Par rapport aux autres pays occidentaux, l'engagement ferme du gouvernement canadien vis-à-vis l'assistance au marché reste exceptionnel. La cohésion entre le gouvernement et le milieu des affaires débute dans les années 1930, tandis qu'un gouffre se creuse entre les fonctionnaires fédéraux chargés du logement et les défenseurs du logement social. L'article estime que cette inclinaison de la politique canadienne du logement en faveurs des Canadiens mieux nantis, qui n'ont pas besoin de l'aide gouvernementale pour se procurer un logement décent, n'est pas accidentelle mais qu'elle reflète les moeurs du marché qui a façonné tous les efforts fédéraux en matière de logement.

Project Management of Low Cost Housing in Developing Countries

This paper highlights construction and management problems in the provision of cost effective housing for low income groups in developing countries based on a case study in the Republic of Vietnam ...

Mutual Aid in Low-cost Housing

The United Nations—long active in facilitating international co-operation in the housing field—will carry out, from 1961 to 1965, a world-wide program whose central theme is the mobilization of individual and group efforts for the im provement of housing for lower-income groups. According to estimates for the world made around 1950, as many as 150 million families in the industrially less-advanced areas required more adequate homes and better physical surroundings. In the industrially advanced countries, there was a housing deficit of roughly 30 million units. At the mid-point of this century, characterized by the greatest technological advances in man's history, there was indeed no country without a housing prob lem. While marked strides had been made in health, educa tion, and nutrition, no comparable advance could be reported in housing. With very few exceptions the supply of housing for most families is in fact deteriorating, especially in the less- developed countries. Practical experiences clearly indicate that self-help and mutual aid combined with economic co operation could contribute towards alleviating the extreme shortage of housing for many income groups and the utter lack of adequate community facilities in most parts of the world.