If you know someone who doesn’t have any clothes or food, you shouldn’t just say, “I hope all goes well for you. I hope you will be warm and have plenty to eat.”

What good is it to say this, unless you do something to help? Faith that doesn’t lead us to do good deeds is dead.

James 2 v 15-17

• Poverty housing affects people's health and well-being.
• It promotes disease.
• It holds people back from education.
• It affects people's employment prospects.
• It keeps people poor.
• One third of the world's population - 2.2 billion people - live in substandard housing that can be dirty, smelly and unsafe.
• Half that number (1.1 billion) live in urban areas.
• 2.6 billion people have no sanitation in their homes.
• 40% of the world has no household or local public sewage disposal.

• In cities in the developing world, one in four households lives in poverty.
• In Africa the percentage of urban households living below the locally defined poverty line is even higher (two in five).
• An estimated 21 million new housing units will be required each year in developing countries to accommodate growth in the number of households between 2000 and 2010.
• If the current housing deficit were to be replaced by 2020 (UNHCS), an additional 14 million units would be required each year for the next 20 years.
• There are also about 100 million people worldwide who are homeless (UNHCS).


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