The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) has warned that the world is facing an unprecedented housing crisis, with about 3.4 billion people currently living without secure, safe, or adequate housing.
The warning was contained in its latest World Cities Report 2026, titled “The Global Housing Crisis: Pathways to Action,” which highlights worsening global inequality in access to decent housing.
According to the report, more than 1.1 billion people are living in informal settlements and slums, where residents face daily risks such as overcrowding, insecure land tenure, exposure to natural disasters, and lack of basic services, including safe sanitation.
The UN agency noted that housing is often delivered in isolation, without proper integration into community planning, environmental conditions, or cultural and social contexts.
It warned that the global housing crisis is being driven by rising construction costs, limited housing supply, forced displacement, and deepening urban inequality.
The report also revealed that only 19 per cent of cities globally have strong civil society participation in urban planning, limiting inclusive decision-making and worsening housing outcomes.
UN-Habitat identified five major interconnected drivers of the crisis: affordability challenges, displacement, informality, sustainability concerns, and poor liveability conditions.
The report stressed that housing must be treated as a global priority and not merely as a market commodity, urging governments to adopt people-centred and inclusive housing systems.
It called for stronger coordination between national and local governments, noting that weak policy integration and fragmented governance structures continue to undermine effective housing delivery.
“Governments should re-establish housing as a public priority,” the report stated, adding that housing policies must align with human rights obligations and broader urban development strategies.
It further highlighted that housing prices have risen sharply worldwide, with global price-to-income ratios increasing from 9.5 in 2010 to 11.7 in 2023, making affordability a growing global concern.
The report warned that inequality is worsening housing pressure, leading to rising rents, overcrowding, and reduced access to decent shelter, especially for low-income groups.
It recommended targeted interventions such as public housing schemes, rental subsidies, and expanded access to affordable credit, particularly for vulnerable groups such as informal workers, migrants, young adults, and female-headed households.
However, it cautioned that demand-side support alone is not sufficient, stressing that supply-side reforms in land management, infrastructure, and housing delivery systems are also critical.
UN-Habitat also noted that climate change is increasingly worsening housing vulnerability, especially in flood-prone and disaster-prone urban areas.
Executive Director of UN-Habitat, Anacláudia Rossbach, described the situation as the result of decades of underinvestment, rapid urbanisation, economic pressures, and repeated crises that have displaced millions of people worldwide.
She noted that despite global commitments under the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals, housing shortages have continued to grow rather than decline.
According to the report, the global housing deficit increased from 251 million units in 2010 to 288 million in 2023, while about 133 million people were displaced globally in 2024 due to conflict, violence, persecution, and disasters.
The report also estimated that about 64 million people were evicted between 2003 and 2023, warning that such displacement often pushes affected households deeper into poverty and housing insecurity.
UN-Habitat emphasized that many displaced persons now move into cities, where they often end up in informal settlements with limited access to safe and adequate housing.
It concluded that addressing the global housing crisis requires urgent, coordinated, and long-term reforms that place adequate housing at the centre of sustainable development and human dignity.
