The aim of this paper is to present evidence on the effects on wellbeing of providing a basic dwelling on-site to households living in situations of extreme poverty in urban slums. In particular, the paper evaluates the impact of the NGO TECHO's emergency housing programme in informal settlements of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Using a quasi-experimental pipeline approach, the paper shows that the programme has a large effect on privacy, security, interpersonal relations, psychological wellbeing and perception of quality of life. In health the program only produces a reduction in the prevalence of cough and congestion. While indicators of sleep quality improve, the effects are not statistically significant after adjusting for multiple hypothesis testing. Additionally, the programme increases the likelihood that households with school age children have a tranquil place to study, evidence that the programme could broaden children's long-term opportunities.

She specializes in the analysis of diverse social topics, including multidimensional poverty, education, civil society and the evaluation of social programmes.Jimena Macció has a doctorate in Economics from the Universidad de Buenos Aires and is Professor of Econometrics in the Department of Economics of the Pontificia Universidad Católica Argentina. She also holds a position in the Unit for Evaluation of Educational Quality and Equity of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires. She specializes in quantitative analysis of social topics, with a focus on multidimensional poverty and education.

Se aplican métodos de medición de pobreza que combinan el espacio de derechos (carencias fundamentales) y el espacio de bienestar (situación económica), empleando datos primarios. En el espacio de derechos se consideran las siguientes dimensiones: educación, vivienda y servicios públicos, cobertura de servicios de salud, alimentación, seguridad social y empleo. En el espacio de bienestar se consideran los ingresos monetarios. Los resultados muestran que casi todas las familias encuestadas presentan privaciones, que llevan a más del 60% a una situación de pobreza extrema. Se presenta un análisis de los resultados con el fin de orientar la creación de políticas públicas para producir una solución verdadera en el enfrentamiento de la pobreza extrema en la que viven las personas de la villa.

This paper illustrates the insights that can be gained from using a multidimensional poverty measurement method based on the capability approach to analyse the scale, characteristics, and spatial distribution of poverty in segregated cities. We assess the poverty gaps between formal and informal neighbourhoods and across districts, compare the results with income-based poverty estimates, and analyse the dimensional composition of poverty and disparities across population subgroups. The results show a weaker correlation between multidimensional and income-based measures and less overlap in terms of who is identified as poor in informal settlements than in the rest of the city. After adjusting for underrepresentation of the slum population in the household survey, informal settlements account for 10% of the city's population but nearly half of the multidimensionally poor. The results highlight the need to design poverty reduction policies that target informal neighbourhoods.