Half of humanity to be affected by global crisis in housing: UN report
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Nearly half of humanity may be affected by a global crisis in housing, according to a new UN report
The study shows shortages of adequate and affordable housing have risen by 30 per cent in just over a decade to more than 268 million units, with 1.1 billion people living in slums or informal settlements.
Nearly 3 billion people – close to 40 per cent of the world’s population – are caught up in an adequate housing crisis which entails unaffordable prices, housing shortages, poor-quality accommodation, and lack of access to adequate urban services like water and sanitation, according to the United Nations report.
UN-Habitat, the UN agency for sustainable housing and urban development, in its “World Cities Report 2026, Global Housing Crisis: Pathways to Action,” revealed this on Tuesday, said a UN-Habitat press release.
The report, released on the occasion of the Thirteenth session of the World Urban Forum (WUF13), are being held at Baku in Azerbaijan from May 17 to 22. The WUF is the premier global conference on sustainable urban development.
The report finds that the global housing crisis is multidimensional and underpinned by structural drivers.
This report shows that the manifestation of the crisis is compounded further by demographic change, environmental pressures, and evolving economic conditions, further exacerbating broader human development gaps, including inequality, poverty, and vulnerability to climate shocks.
Cities are expected to absorb 2.0 billion additional residents by 2050, intensifying pressure on housing systems already strained by rapid urbanisation, rising land values, widening inequality, and climate impacts.
Climate‑related hazards are projected to destroy 167 million homes by 2040. In 2023, natural catastrophes caused US$280 billion in losses, most of which were uninsured.
By the end of 2024, 123.2 million people were forcibly displaced – double the figure of the previous decade. An additional 64 million people were displaced from informal settlements over the past two decades.
Globally, 44 per cent of households spend over 30 per cent of their income on housing, with rental unaffordability most severe in Sub‑Saharan Africa, where 55 per cent of renters are overburdened.
Domestic finance, across governance levels at the national, regional and local levels, needs to better target effective demand and supply side subsidies to bridge these affordability gaps.
“A new social contract for adequate and affordable housing is required – a sense of shared responsibility among governments, the private sector and communities to mobilize investment and align the social and economic functions of housing,” said Anacláudia Rossbach, Executive Director of UN-Habitat.
However, Bangladesh also faces a severe urban housing crisis driven by rapid rural-to-urban migration and climate displacement.
This rapid growth has resulted in a housing deficit of millions of units, with the majority of urban residents, particularly the low-income demographic and climate migrants, forced to live in overcrowded, unserviced slums and informal settlements.
The demand for housing far outpaces supply.
According to studies, there is a deficit of approximately 6 million housing units nationwide, which is projected to rise significantly in the coming years.