Impact Story: Migrant Rental Homes Program

Here is Gowramma. A mother of 2 young children. She is unemployed and her Husband is a waste picker earning less than $3 a Day. They spend 30% of their income on rent in unhealthy Blue tent settlement without water, electricity connection, sanitation facility and waste management in makeshift Tarpaulin blue tents which are not rodent, weather proof and lack privacy, since they are migrants. They spend much more to access basic needs like water, electricity and pay per use Toilet facility everytime.

After joining our matching accessible Rental Home Program in a nearby Recognised marginalized Community, they now have access to electricity, water and sanitation facilities along with privacy in our low-cost modular Pop-Up rental homes built on unused rooftops of small households in these recognised low income communities in urban cities which have access to water, electricity and sanitation facilities in house.

The migrant family pays the same rent as in the blue tent settlement for this lockable, semi permanent housing, which is subsidised with rental vouchers from CSR and philanthropic Donations. This rent also acts as a livelihood for the small house woman in the recognised low income community who has opened up her unused terrace space to add a modular, portable rental home and welcome the migrant family as tenants.

The migrant family no longer needs to spend regularly replacing non durable tarpaulin sheets every year and rotten wooden frames every other year in the blue tent settlement. The migrant woman now has a secure place to start a livelihood activity like a tailoring unit in her private home. The husband is able to work longer with reduced sick leave which was a common occurrence in the Blue Tent settlement due to unhealthy living conditions. The children are also not falling sick as often, saving on medical bills and are able to get good night rest and focus better in the free school they now have access to in this recognised community. As a result, the migrant family disposable income has increased more than 40%.

There are 40,000 such Blue tent migrant households in Bangalore and a similar number of unused terrace spaces in recognised low income communities who could open up and rent their roofs to modular, portable rental homes to accommodate these migrant families which would also provide them with additional rental income livelihood. With $900K of investment, we can reach out to 30,000 of migrant families in the next 3 years and enable access to dignified affordable migrant housing for all. This would result in an increase in disposable income of $6mn on a cumulative basis.

Rhythm Sachdeva Anshul Magotra Simon Fernandes Sagar Jayaram Deepti Natarajan The Bodhi Tree

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