Urban Poverty and

Housing

During the Time of

Pandemic
General Overview by:
Gerald M. Nicolas
Cities continue to be the battleground in the country’s fight against COVID-19.
The impacts of the pandemic have been especially detrimental to the urban
poor, but the response of the government—periodic, disruptive lockdowns,
inadequate contact tracing and testing, and meager emergency cash assistance
—has not provided substantial relief to those unable to continue or find work,
to access comprehensive medical care, and to feed their families.
At a time when people are told to stay at home to slow the spread of the virus,
the government allowed the resumption of eviction of informal settlers and
demolition of their communities in the guise of keeping them out of harm’s way
in so-called danger areas and helping the economy recover through
infrastructure projects.
A rental subsidy law, now making headway in the legislature, might help these
families if enacted soon. Meanwhile, families in off-city resettlement projects
might inadvertently be affected by the proposal to evict those who fail to pay
their monthly amortization or do not reside in the housing project.
The scale and depth of poverty is
underestimated by most governments
and international agencies, and this
helps underpin ineffective policies.
This is made worse by the lack of voice
for low-income urban dwellers and
their lack of influence within
governments and aid agencies.

We are living in what is often

described as the “urban century” –
most of the world’s economy and more
than half its population are now in
urban areas. The world continues to
urbanise – and most of the growth in
the world’s population is in urban
areas in low- and middle-income
countries.
 Most urban dwellers living in
Poverty in urban Most definitions and
informal settlements of which are
places has been at measurements of
affected by these reasons:
large, especially poverty take none of
during the the above into
• Poor quality, overcrowded housing.
pandemic. The consideration, as
• Risk of forceful evictions.
pandemic has they are based only
• Lack of safe, readily available, water
increased the on income-levels.
supplies.
poverty in the And income-based
• Poor provision for sanitation,
urban areas as the poverty lines are
drainage and solid waste collections.
unemployment rate usually set too low in
• Lack of access to healthcare,
has also increased. relation to the costs
emergency services and policing.
of food and non-food
• Difficulty accessing government
needs for urban
schools, and
populations.
• Locations at high risk of disasters
and with risk levels increasing
because of climate change.
 THANK YOU!

PREPARED BY: GROUP 4

JACQUELINE GRACE GRAFANE
JHON FREDERICK PILLO
QUINCY KHATE TORPE
NATHANIEL RHAMZEL CRUZ