In this article, we will discuss Challenges faced by Urban Poor. So, let’s get started.
Challenges faced by Urban Poor
- Overcrowding
- Millions of people migrate to the cities to take up informal jobs such as domestic help, driving cars for middle-class people, taxi driving, construction site work, etc.
- This creates overcrowding in the already packed urban infrastructure.
- Water and Sanitation
- The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the poor sanitation standards of slum areas. Washing hands and observing physical distancing was impossible to follow in slums.
- Nearly 21.8 percent of slum households in Delhi depend on shared water sources such as public taps.
- Health Care
- The low income of these communities means that standard medical help is often unaffordable.
- Therefore, on occasions when it rains or the neighbourhood is flooded, their settlements become breeding grounds for various parasites and infections and the cycle repeats itself.
- Education
- For children living in slums, a host of issues affect their education.
- Even if some children of slum households get enrolled in a school, they have to drop out to support their family financially and are deprived of education.
- Risk of Forceful Eviction
- Lack of affordable housing leaves the people address-less on paper. They settle wherever they can, but as more people join, a whole community of undocumented settlers emerges that creates a risk of forceful eviction.
- Forced eviction is defined as the permanent or temporary removal against the will of individuals, families and/or communities from the homes and/or land which they occupy.
