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Shelter: a basic human rightThe poor deserve a portfolio of housing solutions to meet their diverse needs. -
Self-construction: The biggest supplier of housing for the urban poormHS aims to catalyze this process to facilitate access to quality, safe and affordable units. -
Inadequate housing supply for the urban poorOver 80 million Indians live in sub-standard housing; 8 million are homeless. -
mHS mission: To build quality homesWe engage with homeowners directly through field studies and pilots to provide safe and affordable housing solutions. -
mHS enables the creation of inclusive citiesOur multi-disciplinary approach to research and consulting informs policies and large-scale projects.
mHS
micro Home Solutions is a multi-disciplinary social enterprise based out of New Delhi, India
mHS's vision is to enable the creation of socially inclusive cities by developing a portfolio of housing solutions to meet the diverse shelter needs of the urban poor. We conceptualize and facilitate the design of innovative projects and collaborate with institutions to drive impact at a larger scale.
BUILD & ENABLE
mHS works with communities, civil society, financial institutions, government and multilateral agencies to pilot solutions on the ground. Our field perspective and multidisciplinary approach uniquely positions us to undertake research and offer consulting services that enable policymakers and stakeholders to positively impact housing for the poor.
Latest Projects
In Fall 2012, the mHS technical team designed and self-built its own office space on a rooftop in Greater Kailash.
mHS is collaborating with Ashoka Housing for All to develop an affordable housing ratings system. The multi-pronged system, which assesses low-income housing on the basis of affordability, community, construction quality, and sustainability, will give low-income communities a tool for making housing decisions, and also provide critical knowledge of an underserved and misunderstood market to developers seeking to enter the affordable housing space.
mHS conceptualized DHS to bring construction finance and technical assistance to households. In partnership with BASIX-BSFL, a microfinance institution, the product reached 15 families with 2-storey construction. The technical assistance ensured structural safety, better ventilation, cost estimates, and monitoring assistance to those living in highly precarious structures.
We undertook a study for the World Bank to assess quality and quantity of self-/incremental construction in India. We designed a typology framework across settlements with a variety of average household incomes, tenure/titles, and land-uses to bring analytical rigor to evaluate the opportunity of providing housing finance to households in such neighborhoods.
There are anywhere between 5-8 million homeless people in urban India. The majority of these are daily wage labourers unable to afford rental units in the slums. In partnership with a local NGO, mHS designed and constructed two modular shelters to accommodate about 150 persons per night. The project serves as a scalable model for providing sustainable, cost-effective housing to urban India's most vulnerable population.