Building Assets, Unlocking Access: Shelter Solutions for the Poor

This publication, produced as part of the Building Assets, Unlocking Access project implemented by Habitat’s Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, offers a snapshot of housing microfinance clients’ demographics, income, current living conditions and typical home improvements done with housing microfinance loans in Kenya and Uganda. 

This publication is the preamble of a series of publications that will be produced during the last year of project implementation, which will focus on understanding if, and to what extent, access to affordable housing and other nonfinancial, demand-driven services supports low-income households in improving their quality of life.

The first part of this publication portrays some overall characteristics and/or trends of housing microfinance clients on socioeconomic and demographic information; the second part focuses on types of home improvements, those involved in the process of carrying out the home improvement, land tenure, and financing. The last part showcases the faces behind the loans, telling us about their experience of improving their home conditions, and how the housing microfinance products have supported them and impacted their quality of life.