Petionville, Haiti

Urban Poverty Housing
Exploring Worldwide Urban Poverty Housing Issues

It is a global phenomenon: mass migration from rural to urban areas as people, especially those mired in poverty, seek the better health care, education and job opportunities that cities seem to promise. It is a promise largely unfulfilled. Affordable urban housing options are limited, and governments are increasingly unable--or unwilling--to cope with the enormous pressures that the influx brings. In much of the developing world, the migration has given rise to shantytowns that are unsafe, unsanitary, unacceptable. In the United States, cities are struggling with sprawl and urban flight that leave their poor with fewer and fewer options. These challenges have not changed Habitat for Humanity's bedrock belief that everyone deserves a simple, decent, affordable place to live.