Why Housing Policy Must Consider Children's Needs

Manish Thakre

Where a child grows up can shape their future. Yet housing policy rarely reflects this. Why cities must move beyond units—and start building environments where children can truly thrive. By Manish Thakre

Housing is one of the most decisive factors shaping children’s life chances in cities today. When housing is inadequate, unstable, or absent, children bear the consequences across their health, education, safety, and overall well-being. Poor housing conditions are directly linked to worse physical and mental health outcomes for children, while temporary and insecure housing places additional stress on caregivers and, in extreme cases, it has been identified as a contributing factor in child deaths, particularly among infants.

Globally, an estimated 1.6 billion people live in inadequate housing, including 1 billion in slums and informal settlements. Of these, an estimated 350 million to 500 million are children. Even in high-income countries, the crisis persists: in the United States alone, more than 10 million children – about 14 per cent – live in overcrowded homes.

The lack of affordable and rental housing must be addressed through inclusive and equitable policy interventions, as a secure roof over one’s head remains a fundamental indicator of living standards. As stated in Article 27 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, children are entitled to an adequate standard of living for their physical, mental, and social development, including access to adequate housing. The Convention’s core principles—survival and development, participation, non-discrimination, and the best interests of the child— ultimately depend on the conditions in which children live. Adequate housing is one such enabling condition.

Centring Children in Housing Policy and Practice

These challenges are also reflected in current global discussions, including the World Urban Forum 13 in Baku, held under the theme “Housing the World: Safe and Resilient Cities and Communities.” Housing has become a pressing challenge for urban centres worldwide, across both the Global North and the Global South and is particularly acute in fragile and conflict-affected contexts. As highlighted by the International Committee of the Red Cross, modern conflicts are increasingly urban, with housing and civilian infrastructure directly targeted, leading to displacement, homelessness, and disruption to essential services.

Across contexts – whether informal settlements, rapidly gentrifying cities, or conflict-affected areas – children are most affected by inadequate, insecure, or poorly located housing, undermining both their well-being and long-term life chances.

Across the Forum’s six dialogues – spanning housing crises, slum transformation, climate resilience, recovery and reconstruction, socio-economic systems, and finance – housing is treated as a complex, cross-sectoral challenge. Yet, children’s perspectives remain largely absent, both in policy discussions and in implementation. As a result, even the core elements of adequate housing – secure tenure, basic services, affordability, habitability, accessibility, location, and cultural adequacy–are often not addressed in an integrated way, limiting outcomes for children’s well-being.

Why Housing Systems Exclude Children

Despite clear evidence and global commitments, housing systems remain largely non-participatory and continue to overlook children as key stakeholders. This is not only a question of visibility but also of structural design. Housing provision is typically organised around land values, market dynamics and household income, meaning that access depends largely on the financial capacity of parents or caregivers, rather than children’s needs and rights.

This becomes visible across contexts – from the persistence of informal settlements in rapidly growing cities to the displacement effects of gentrification in the wealthier ones. The scale of the challenge is significant: the global affordable housing gap is estimated at 330 million urban households and projected to reach 440 million, around 1.6 billion people by 2025. Yet even where housing is delivered, it often falls short of adequacy, limiting its contribution to children’s development.

Moving forward requires a shift from housing as a product to housing as a platform for child well-being – where safety, stability, and opportunity are built into the system by design, not treated as afterthoughts.

What Works: Housing That Expands Opportunity for Children

Evidence from different contexts shows that when housing is designed as part of a broader urban system, outcomes for children improve significantly. In the United States, the HOPE VI program demonstrated that transforming high-poverty public housing into mixed-income communities not only improved physical conditions but also expanded long-term opportunities for children. Those who grew up in these neighbourhoods later earned significantly higher incomes as adults, underscoring how early-life environments shape life chances.

Similarly, in cities like Bogotá, targeted in-situ upgrading programs have improved housing safety, reduced overcrowding, and strengthened tenure security, while keeping communities connected to jobs and services. A comparable model can be seen in Ahmedabad, where the Slum Networking Project demonstrated how in-situ upgrading -improving infrastructure within existing settlements rather than relocating communities -can integrate informal settlements into the formal city through investments in water, sanitation, drainage, and roads.

Housing Beyond Construction: What Really Matters

These examples point to a broader lesson: housing interventions are most effective when they go beyond construction to address neighbourhood conditions, social infrastructure, and access to opportunity. Integrating housing with services, mobility, and community development can directly influence children’s health, education, and future earnings.

For policymakers, the implication is clear: housing investments should not be judged only by the number of units delivered, but by whether they reduce spatial inequality and create environments where children and their families can thrive in dignity and grow without fear of displacement.

Resilience cannot be measured only by housing units built, or informal settlements relocated or upgraded. It must be assessed by whether cities enable children to grow up in safety, dignity, and stability.

Making Housing Work for Children—and Cities. This is why housing must be understood as a foundational system for child development, not a peripheral sector of urban policy. It should be embedded across global and national frameworks – from the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Urban Agenda to climate instruments such as Nationally Determined Contributions and National Adaptation Plans.

The solutions already exist. What is missing is consistent implementation through planning, design, and investments that are participatory, inclusive, and equity-driven.

Placing children at the centre shifts the focus to what actually makes cities work: safe neighbourhoods, access to services, clean environments, mobility, and opportunities for learning and livelihoods. Location matters. So do parks, safe streets, clean air, healthcare, and connectivity. These are not add-ons – they determine whether children can thrive.

Good urban governance is not defined by how well it serves the formal city, but by how effectively it includes and uplifts those most often left out. Safe and resilient housing for children is ultimately housing that works for everyone.