The impact of housing finance policies on the right to adequate housing of those living in poverty 2012, para. 57
Paragraph- Paragraph text
- The small scale and the nature of most housing microfinance programmes, in particular their focus on profitability, prevent them from addressing the issues of tenure security, location, infrastructure and availability of services. Whereas the provision of financial services for incremental housing construction or improvement constitutes a relatively straightforward, manageable undertaking, participation in the process of acquiring land and delivering infrastructure is legally, financially and politically complex, requiring extensive institutional and financial capacities and legal powers typically available only to national and local Government agencies. The incremental approach may, in some cases, promote the habitability aspect of the right to adequate housing by assisting slum dwellers to improve existing homes, but it does little to promote the broader aspects of tenure, location, availability of services and infrastructure. Whether housing microfinance increases housing affordability is also questionable: housing microfinance borrowers increase their housing expenditure substantially, but even after the improvements their dwellings tend to remain segregated from health and education services and employment opportunities and, without secure tenure, they may eventually find themselves evicted (without compensation or relocation) from their improved homes.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Means of adoption
- N.A.
- Topic(s)
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2012
- Paragraph type
- Other
- Reference
- SR Housing, Report to the UNGA (2012), A/67/286, para. 57.
- Paragraph number
- 57
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