Finance for Low-Income Housing
Finance for Low-Income Housing Finance for Low-Income Housing and Community Development Diana Mitlin I. INTRODUCTION In most urban areas in high-income nations and many middle-income nations, good quality, legal housing is expensive. Most of it would not have been built without mortgage finance; middle-income households, and even most upper-income groups, need mortgages in order to buy it, or long-term finance in order to build it. In most cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America, low-income households cannot afford legal housing or good quality housing. They either rent (usually in poor quality overcrowded dwellings) or buy, or build in illegal settlements. They cannot get conventional housing finance because their homes are in illegal settlements and they lack the income or formal documentation that housing finance agencies require. However, there has been much innovation in finance to support housing, infrastructure and community development for low-income groups over the last 15