homeless-international.org. – wiki common

homeless-international.org. March, 26, 2013.

Homeless International’s award winning CLIFF programme has reached agreement with a new partner – Women’s Advancement Trust – Human Settlements Trust (WAT-HST) to build affordable homes for slum dwellers in Tanzania.

The agreement includes the commitment to build nearly 1,200 new homes for slum dwellers in Dar es Salaam over a two year period, with the properties being delivered in 10 projects on an affordable loan basis. Homeless International’s Community-Led Infrastructure Finance Facility (CLIFF) programme team, which recently won silver at the prestigious Emerging Partnerships awards sponsored by IFC (a member of the World Bank) and the Infrastructure Journal, will work closely with WAT-HST  to build housing delivery systems that generate surpluses to ensure the on-going sustainability of both the organisation and their programme. Work will begin this year with land purchases leading to final completion in September 2014.

“The CLIFF programme provides capital finance and capacity building support for organisations working in some of the most deprived slums in Africa and Asia to develop the capabilities required provide housing and basic services for the urban poor – ” said Larry English, Homeless International’s Chief Executive. “We are looking forward to our partnership WAT-HST and to seeing the organisation develop models that serve not only the needs of this generation of Tanzanians, but of generations to come.”

Read more: http://www.homeless-international.org/Tanzania

seattleglobalist.com. March 27, 2013

Urban slums may seem like a distant problem only facing poor countries. But Seattle has a history of informal settlements all its own.

Tent cities have existed as emergency shelter for thousands of years, often amassing in the wake of natural disasters, political purges, wars and other human catastrophes. For example, the Great Depression caused unprecedented unemployment rates worldwide and forced many American families to live in shanty towns—known as “Hoovervilles”—some of which still exist today as tent cities.

Around the world close to one billion people live in informal settlements or “slums.” By some estimates that population is expected to double by 2030. Residents of slums live in extreme poverty despite being located in industrialized urban centers such as Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, and Cape Town. Characterized by squalor, overcrowding, high crime rates, and a lack of basic human needs, slums are a more visible and permanent relative of the tent cities we have right here in the Northwest.

Read more: http://www.seattleglobalist.com/tent-cities-local-reflection-of-global-slums 

bbc.com. March 26, 2013

There’s an urgent need for sustainable housing solutions for the urban poor around the world. Meet the people hoping to revolutionise slum living with their hi-tech, low-cost ideas.

Migration of people to cities has reached unprecedented levels in recent human history. Over a third of these people – around one billion in total – now live in slums, informal settlements and shantytowns, often in little more than corrugated iron and zinc sheet shacks lacking access to even the most basic sanitation, clean water, security, or clean energy sources.

Africa boasts the fastest rate of urbanisation, and it has the highest share of informal settlement residents (62% of sub-Saharan Africa’s urban population live in slums). If trends continue, by 2050, there will be an estimated 1.2 billion people inhabiting Africa’s swelling slums, according to the UN.

Slums are often hubs of impressive innovation and creativity by residents working to get by – rigging electricity, sanitation and water systems in the absence of real infrastructure. But there is an enormous and urgent need for better, more sustainable solutions to house the urban poor in Africa, and worldwide.

Read more: bbc.com-Bringing-Mod-Cons-To-The-Slums

Photo: en.wikipedia.org

guardian.co.uk. March 22, 2013

Report says 64 million Indians live in degrading conditions and that a full survey would uncover even more.

One in six urban Indians lives in slum housing that is cramped, poorly ventilated, unclean and “unfit for human habitation”, according to the country’s first complete census of its vast slum population. In other words, nearly 64 million Indians live in a degrading urban environment very similar to the shantytowns portrayed in the Oscar-winning movie Slumdog Millionaire.

The first-ever nationwide report – prepared from data collated for the 2011 national census – looks at urban slums in around 4,000 towns across India. (A slum was defined as a settlement of at least 60 households deemed unfit for human habitation, but the report does not cover every town and city in this vast country.)

India’s Planning Commission has recommended that urban clusters with as few as 20 households should be classed as slums. “We will be analysing the census data on the basis of the new definition also,” said Dr C Chandramouli, the registrar general. “This is likely to increase the number of slum households across the country.”

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/India-Slumdog-Census-Poor-Conditions

Photo: Times Herald

timesherald.com – Mumbai, India (AP), March 22, 2013

A new census report says one in six people in Indian cities live in some 100,000 sprawling slums with conditions “unfit for human habitation.” The statistics are India’s first complete count of its vast slum population.

The census identified 13.8 million households — about 64 million people — located in slums in urban areas around the country.

A whopping 41 percent of households in Mumbai, India’s financial capital and largest city, were located in overcrowded shantytowns, where most residents are squatting illegally and many have little access to basic sanitation.

More than one-third of slum homes surveyed had no indoor toilet and 64 percent were not connected to sewerage systems.

However, 70 percent had televisions and 64 percent had cellphones.

Read more: http://www.timesherald.com/census-1-in-6-in-indian-cities-live-in-slums

archrecord.construction.com. March 2013.  As the world’s population of informal-settlement dwellers races to the 1.5 billion mark, designers and planners must play a central, if redefined, role.

This century’s biggest architectural challenge is taking place in the developing world. There, already overcrowded cities must absorb a constant influx of migrants fleeing the lack of economic opportunities or the armed conflicts plaguing their rural hometowns. Soon the world will house 1.5 billion slum dwellers, half of them in Asia, with the 2 billion mark scheduled to be reached by 2030

Read more: http://archrecord.construction.coms/Beyond-Architechture