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Housing for Poor People in Cairo, Egypt

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The condition of housing for people in Cairo, Egypt is in dire straits. Three of the world’s 30 largest slums are found in Cairo and 45 percent of Egypt’s population is living in slum conditions. It has been stated that there are about 8 million slum dwellers in Greater Cairo and almost 70 percent of the city’s residents live in informal areas or settlements that are called ashwa’iyyat (Kipper, 2009).
Informal housing areas in Cairo are inhabited by heterogeneous group of people and these areas spread throughout Greater Cairo and there is lack of support from the government to tackle the spread of such slums (Bayat and Dennis, 2000). In 2005, Egypt’s UN Human Development Report (EHDR) reported the precarious situation of housing for poor people in Cairo.
Following the report of 2005, the government announced a series of planned projects to tackle the housing problem in Cairo along with the cooperation of UNDP. Further, international aid organizations such as the USAID and GTZ also came forward to help in several housing projects. However, in spite of such measures there is need for further development to control the continued encroachment on agricultural lands and lack of proper housing for the poor.
There is a view expressed by several scholars that informal housing is actually a solution to provide housing to the poor people in Cairo (O’Donnell, 2013). While the government of Cairo fears that slums harm the modernisation of Cairo but at the same time, informal housing is a blessing in disguise for the poor in Cairo. Some organizations such as the Ashoka and Ashoka Arab World have come up with Housing For All (HFA) imitative that aims at improving the purchasing power of the poor so that they can afford safer, cleaner and better homes. Another NGO organization, Habitat for Humanity Egypt, and the organization Cities Alliance aims at creating affordable housing for the poor.
The problem of human population also needs to be tackled to reach any desired result. It has also been recommended by some that Cairo looks at building a new city that would share some part of its growing population. The government in Cairo should also look at ways to regularise slums by offering land rights and upgrade conditions of poor people by providing them basic infrastructure and housing (O’Donnell, 2013). There is also need for creation of modern planned desert settlements. Another solution to the given problem would be legislation of laws that allow land titling and housing rights for the poor along with access to services like water systems and security (O’Donnell, 2013). The government has already started on investing in youth housing programs that aim at creating one million housing units for low income citizens in Cairo. The legislation Rent Law No. 4 of 1996 also aims at exempting certain constructions from rent laws and there is proposal for legislating “occupants union bill” and housing co-operatives law that would provide housing to the poor in Cairo (O’Donnell, 2013).

References
Kipper, R 2009, Cairo: A Broader View, in Regina Kipper and Marton Fischer, eds., Cairo’s Informal Areas: Between Urban Challenges and Hidden Potentials, Portugal: Nonprint SA, 15.

Bayat, A and Denis, B 2000, Who is afraid of ashwaiyyat? Urban change and politics in Egypt, Environment and Urbanization 12, pp. 185.

O’Donnell, S., 2013. Informal housing in Cairo: Are Ashwa’iyyat Really the Problem? [online] Available at: http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/92714/1/Informal%20Housing%20in%20Cairo.pdf Emails:

Ashoka
87 Abdel Aziz Al Seoud St.، Al Manial, Cairo Governorate, Egypt
Phone:+20 2 25328586 tchoi@ashoka.org Ashoka Arab World
93 Abdel Aziz Al Saud, 7th Floor, Apt # 1 , Cairo, Egypt media@ashoka-arab.org Habitat for Humanity Egypt
99 Omar Ibn El-Khattab St., Almazah
Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt, 11341
Email
no@habitategypt.org
Phone
+202 2419 5161/2
Fax
+202 2419 5163

Cities Alliance
Rond Point Schuman 6/5
1040 Brussels, Belgium
Telephone: +32 2 234 6370 Email: info@citiesalliance.org

United Nations Development Programme
UNDP
Egypt Country Office
CEDARE Building, 2 El Hegaz Street
Roxy, Heliopolis
Cairo, Egypt
Office:
(202) 2256 1796 /56 /13 /02
Fax:
(202) 2256 1647
E-mail:
registry.eg@undp.org

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