To path indicator Subpages of “newsdetail“ To navigation To quick access To footer with other services
To content
Logo des Fachgebiets IPS
Department of Spatial Planning
A wall with barbed wire in the city of Lima in Peru © Nick Nowara​/​TU Dortmund

New publication by Raffael Beier

A field with many plots of land for sale © Raffael Beier​/​private
Resettlement site with many plots for sale by displaced dwellers of informal settlements in Bouknadel, Morocco (2021)
State-subsidized housing programs in Africa, Asia and Latin America often miss their target groups. This article sheds light on why many recipients leave their homes and what role financial restrictions play in this.

Article

Beier, Raffael (2025) The Missing People of State-subsidized Housing: Lived Experiences of Non-occupancy and Secondary Residential Mobility. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, online first. DOI: 10.1111/1468-2427.13365

Keywords

Housing / Gentrification / Affordability of Housing / State-Subsidized Housing Programs / Self-Determined Choice of Residence / Social Mobility

Abstract

Large-scale, state-subsidized housing programmes have experienced a renaissance in Africa, Asia and Latin America, but provoke justified concerns about whether they miss their target groups. Unaffordability, lack of choice, peripheral locations and under-serviced sites are common problems. Ultimately, many subsidized units are not occupied by their intended recipients. Most authors see this as a form of gentrification or downward-raiding, whereby higher income groups displace housing recipients towards poor-quality housing elsewhere. However, most research fails to include the perspectives of those who do not occupy or who vacate their units, mainly because of the methodological challenges of locating these people. Consequently, little information exists about the secondary residential mobility of the ‘missing people’ of state-subsidized housing programmes. Where do they move to, why do they leave? This comparative study of three of the most significant housing programmes in Africa analysed 101 housing pathways of such people in the capital regions of Ethiopia, Morocco and South Africa. Rejecting a unilateral notion of displacement, I suggest a new conceptual perspective that sees people who do not occupy their allotted housing units as active subjects reconfiguring supply-driven, shelter-centric housing policy according to their own needs, while also being affected by (severe) financial constraints.

More information here

To top of page