Access to secure tenure and Housing has been a perennial issue plaguing the urban poor. The situation is very critical especially in larger cities where almost half the population is in slums. Though In-situ upgradation and Re-settlement on alternate land is a right the Government of Maharashtra has given to all slum dwellers living in an urban area prior to 1995, the process is excruciatingly slow as most government policies and programmes do not address ground realities. This has resulted in a tremendous backlog in providing housing to the poor and the situation is getting compounded with continuing in-migration in the cities. It has been SA’s endeavor to bring these issues up with the local and State Government through projects, which bring these issues into sharp focus.

Slums that need to be demolished to make way for city development projects such as road-widening, gardens or slums affected by natural disasters such as floods have to re-settle on alternate safe land. Over the last twelve years, Shelter Associates has been looking into issues related to Housing the poor and have implemented two resettlement projects in Pune

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