Urban poverty and poor housing affordability: An impediment on health quality in Nigerian urban areas

There is a proof that urban poverty damages the environment, on the other hand poor urban environment endangers the lives and health of many urban residents. Lack of access to healthy homes is a central feature of urban poverty. About 600 million urban dwellers in Africa, Asia and Latin America live in housing that is overcrowded and of poor quality, with inadequate water provision, sanitation, drainage and refuse disposal that placed their lives and health at risk. In Nigeria today 63 percent of the citizens are living below poverty line, reason why Nigeria was ranked 163 out of 191 United Nations member states in the Human Development Index (HDI) for the year 2022 which puts Nigeria on Low Human Development (LHD). The thrust of this paper is to investigate the link between urban poverty and housing affordability with a view to establish its implication on health quality of the urban residents in Nigeria. The paper studied 10 selected slum neighborhoods’ in Abia State Nigeria. Copies of questionnaire were administered to sample size of 700 respondents from 700 households drawn using stratified systematic random sampling technique from the 10 selected slum neighborhoods’. Findings of the paper affirm that the neighborhoods’ are typical slum environment and impedes health quality of the residents. The paper, therefore, recommends socio-economic revitalization as to improve housing affordability in the study area and Nigeria at large. The paper also recommends environmental and health education and enforcement of environmental sanitation laws.