A global tool for local action:
A shared framework to understand housing
The Global Housing Continuum is a conceptual and visual framework developed by Habitat for Humanity International to help make sense of the world’s diverse housing realities. It offers a common language for policymakers, practitioners, advocates and funders to understand housing needs across contexts and to better align policy, financing and action.
Rather than treating housing challenges as isolated or country‑specific, the continuum presents housing as a spectrum of universal needs and solutions, ranging from solutions that view housing as a service to those that see it as an asset. It recognizes that addressing the global housing crisis requires multiple approaches operating at the same time and in various combinations depending on context. A core innovation of the Global Housing Continuum is the central placement of Incremental housing, reflecting how the majority of the world’s housing is produced and improved over time. These details are captured in the Global Housing Continuum Snapshot, a diagnostic tool that brings together housing need, policy frameworks and financial mechanisms in a single visual.
Download the full report
The full Global Housing Continuum report, including an executive summary, a comprehensive introduction, glossary of core categories and common housing interventions, six Housing Continuum Snapshots, a practical guide to create Snapshots and a set of 20 examples of successful projects across the continuum.
The Global Housing Continuum Snapshot
Explore this diagnostic tool that brings together housing need, policy frameworks and financial mechanisms in a single visual. This interactive view helps surface gaps, misalignments, and opportunities across the housing system.
Housing Continuum Toolbox
Resources to understand, apply and adapt the Global Housing Continuum.
Making sense of the Global Housing Continuum
This document introduces the Global Housing Continuum, explaining its five categories — Homelessness, Transitional, Incremental, Social and Market — and outlining the common housing interventions associated with each (defined in detail in the Glossary). It also presents the Housing Continuum Snapshot, a tool designed to examine at a high-level if housing needs align with existing policies and financing mechanisms.
Glossary: Towards a common vocabulary
The Housing Continuum glossary provides definitions for common housing interventions as well as its five distinct categories. This shared vocabulary promotes a consistent understanding across contexts, ensuring global comparability and local adaptation. Definitions include international standards (where available) and reputable grey literature.
Guide to create Housing Continuum Snapshots (7pgs)
A six-step practical guide for those interested in developing or updating a Housing Continuum Snapshot. The guide walks the user through the process, recommends useful data sources and provides templates to facilitate the creation of standard graphics.
Examples of common housing interventions across the Global Housing Continuum
To illustrate the wide range of solutions addressing housing needs across the Global Housing Continuum, this document compiles 20 successful project examples spanning a variety of contexts and actors. The criteria for selection include: geographic diversity, recency, range of implementing actors and the availability of credible evidence. Rather than showcasing best practices, these cases serve as illustrative, real-world examples that demonstrate how diverse housing challenges are being addressed globally.
Snapshot Library
Using the Global Housing Continuum as a framework, these documents provide a snapshot of estimated housing needs across five categories — Homelessness, Transitional, Incremental, Social and Market — and present, in a single visual, the most significant housing policies and financial mechanisms within a specific geography.
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More than 1 billion people around the world live in slums and other informal settlements, and that figure continues to rise. Informal settlements have very limited access to basic services such as clean water, sanitation and electricity. The poor living conditions are a physical manifestation of inequities holding back far too many families and communities.
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Housing remains a neglected priority in local, national, regional and global development commitments and foreign assistance.
Habitat for Humanity is building the case that housing is more than just four walls and a roof – it’s health, education, economic opportunity and the foundation for a better future.
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We are improving access to adequate housing in informal settlements around the world. Explore how locally led advocacy in informal settlements is driving real impact in our Year 2 progress report.