Among the many challenges that need urgent attention, more so after the Covid-19 pandemic invaded our lives, is housing. Covid-19 rudely tore off the fig leaves. The housing crisis in India isn’t a product of the pandemic alone. Rather, it has been quietly building for decades. It is time for leaders of all political persuasions to get serious about a housing policy. 

This vital segment needs a scientific and creative intervention to make it a sustainable pro- position. Lack of proper housing is one of the reasons, apart from the loss of jobs, that led to the mass migration of labourers from cities to the villages during the initial days of the lockdown. 

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Many households are largely primitive and are not built to withhold extreme weather conditions, particularly heavy rainfall. As many are constructed with mud and other non-durable materials, families constantly must repair their homes which places a large strain on finances. Furthermore, the sanitation conditions are very low in low-income communities where there is no sewage and families live within extremely small confines. 

Demographic shifts combined with poor or non-existent land ownership policies and insufficient resources have resulted in a surge of slum creation and further deterioration of living conditions. Hence, expanding access to affordable housing is essential not just for equitable development but also for social stability. 

Housing is not a standalone issue and is closely intertwined with other factors. Lack of sustainable housing is often the cause of a slew of health and developmental problems. Human health and well-being depend on a range of interconnected social, economic, and physical factors that impact the environment in which we live and sustain ourselves. 

Poor ventilation and the inability to maintain basic hygiene are major causes of poor health. Fragile building structures undermine the safety and increase vulnerability to disaster. Lack of lighting and space limits the ability of children to study. Inadequate privacy and lack of sanitation contribute to a host of diseases, hence perpetuating poverty. 

Affordability is not just about the ability to buy or rent a home, but also about being able to afford to live in it. This definition of affordability goes beyond meeting expenses related to operations and maintenance, taking into consideration transport, access to social infrastructure and other services. 

The key to good housing is to ensure that residents have access to transportation, affordable healthcare, jobs, education as well as other essential services. A decent habitat and shelter can contribute to not just individual or societal well-being but also have the potential to catalyse overall economic growth. It is, thus, critical to recognise housing investment as a basic, fundamental building block of economic activity. 

The well-known expert on affordable housing David A Smith defined affordable housing as “quality accommodations affordable to a target population, secure in tenure, affordable over a duration that operate independently as a business.” Owning a home is nearly impossible for individuals working in the informal section. High costs and low incomes shut these individuals out of the formal financial markets and limit their access to loans, making it hard for them to buy or build a home. Inadequate housing and financial exclusion contribute to a larger socioeconomic trap that limits the ability of people to increase their incomes or improve educational outcomes. It also deprives populations of access to basic services like electricity, clean water and sanitation or to participate in formal systems that can lead to better opportunities. 

The affordable housing agenda has faced a raft of stubborn ~ and interlinked ~ structural challenges. A key systemic issue that still prevents widespread private sector presence is the lack of clear, individual mortgageable and enforceable titles. 

While many villagers and slum dwellers own their homes, which they likely built themselves, they rarely own the piece of land which holds their dwelling. 

Without formal bookkeeping or credit histories, this archipelago has been beyond the reach of bankers. This is a major obstacle as many families may not have had documentation for generations and the process of obtaining and putting it in place is impossible to accomplish without nimble titling, mortgaging, and financing systems. 

Land ownership is split, and entrepreneurs would need to unlock the value of otherwise dead capital in the hands of these households 

India’s housing space ~ particularly the lower tier in the economic pyramid ~ has remained largely unaddressed as many had tried and most found it hard ground. Low-income households often face the highest borrowing costs ~ if they can gain access to finance at all. 

There are numerous impediments to getting a mortgage. Banks limit mortgages to borrowers with stable, documented earnings and very often only the formally employed are granted a loan. The complications associated with registering mortgages are major constraints, as is gain- ing formal title to a property when land registries are faulty and the legal complexities are many. 

Many who live in slums have little to no control over or ownership of the property they live on. Once titled, they could obtain access to several public benefits including loans. Housing is often the bedrock of other development interventions: owning land boosts health pro- files, educational outcomes and gender equality. The converse is equally true.

For many people, the land on which they live is their only asset. Where land security is absent or weak ~ when men and women do not have recognised legal rights to their land and can thus be easily displaced ~ all other development efforts go in vain and conflict arises. 

Several state governments in India have provided a degree of tenure security to poor households. This grants residents of unauthorised settlements specific period licences to their land or an official assurance that the user will not be forced to vacate the property. This security can be given the recognition of “presumed ownership.” 

Typically, dwellers are granted land from the government or live on land passed down to them by ancestors. These are known as “para-legal titles”. 

Many of them may not have a full land title but possess documentary evidence of tenure (such as tax receipts, government-issued letters, and utility bills that give legal protection from eviction). 

Thus, while clear legal titles have to be the ultimate goal, one could look at interim regularisation with much less time and administrative effort. Progressive tenures carry legitimacy and weight with several basic service providers. 

Slum-dwellers favour the up gradation of existing facilities and secure tenancy. Evictions from slums and the demolition of settlements have risen as cities expand and are brought under programmes that aim to create centres similar to those in western countries 

Several private housing companies have experimented with housing finance products that recognize para-legal titles as collateral. Tax receipts, documentary evidence of customary ownership of land and community endorsements of ownerships are being used as security to extend housing finance. 

However, these innovative experiments cannot be scaled up in the absence of buy-in from regulators. There is a need for legal innovations whereby housing loan contracts could be creatively designed in ways that paralegal documents become valid instruments of the mortgage. 

This can help both the borrowers and housing finance companies get the benefit of programmes and schemes that provide either subsidy or interest subvention on housing finance. 

Regulars have to balance innovation with the soundness and stability of the system and may not be too responsive to the new experiments in which collateral substitutes are being used for simulated mortgages. 

It would need legal reengineering to reconfigure the entire jurisprudence relating to mortgages and explore possible para-legal titles to resolve the housing conundrum. 

In the absence of housing finance and proper technical support, the majority of housing stock in developing countries is self-built. 

Many families try to save money on labour costs by managing their home construction, relying on family members, their immediate network of friends and neighbours to provide labour, which impacts structural integrity and ability to withstand disasters. 

The housing sector demands a high level of creativity. There is a lot to be done across a range of policy areas to improve the functioning of different aspects of our housing system. The conventional bureaucratic approach and thinking of business-as-usual can merely scratch the surface of the problem. 

The stresses are mounting fast and India needs to start talking very seriously about the elephant in the room. For any planned interventions to be successful, hard-coded timelines are required. These timelines should be insulated from political turbulence. 

(The writer is an author, researcher and development professional. He can be reached at moinqazi123@gmail.com)