And also, this is a kind of partial upgrade with reclaimed materials they have developed with the kind of whatever, they have been able to procure from the past site or with their feasibilities, they have made some modifications to their shelters. And within a month, 53% of the house owners have started to upgrade their shelters and this is very quick, within a month if this kind of change is 53%.

The priorities were first doors, second walls, and the third is windows, so the ventilation aspect. And some beneficiaries bought their own timber for walls, doors and windows as we have seen in this complete set is in a timber. For the outset and used the plastic sheeting provided to the line of the walls, so they covered with a kind of partial covering with a plastic sheet.

Others sold a plastic sheeting and hired the local artisans to build adobe walls. So, they have given it back and they sold it in the market and they could able to get some money and they could able to put some more money and built the adobe walls and so this whole process you know, it’s all showing up an incremental process depending on each household what kind of economic feasibility they had, what kind of infill they are responding to their needs and demands.

And some paid for the labour in kind using the tools they were given in the shelter kit and some sold their tools once shelters were complete to buy household furnishings. So, once the tools have been sold, they even bought some more household furnishings and fittings.

So, with this, the government has understood that yes there is a possibility that to scale up this process. So, now what they did was they developed from 18 square meters to 20 square meters and the permanent walls of adobe and timber and they launched the project to build about 40,000 low-cost houses. So, by the end of March 2009, it is about 16,240 were built mainly with the partnership of UNHCR and MoSSP.

So, when you talk about the theoretical understanding of it, you know as I said you in the beginning transition shelter is not a noun, it is a verb, it is a process. So, as Christopher Alexander describes a house is an activity which is ‘created gradually, as a direct result of living which is happening in it and around it’ by people who spend only what they can afford.

When you start living in it, you realize that you know, what you need and accordingly people start amending that, not only within the house, around the house. And this is the similar observations made from John F.C. Turner on his work in Mexico, housing by people. So, that is where he talks about the use value derived from this approach was more significant than the market value.

Similarly, John Habraken supports on 3 levels of decision making; one is the tissue and the support which is the base building. The tissue refers to the urban fabric and the support refers to the base building and the fitout refers to the infill, what the people have done in their houses...

And similarly, buildings are also essentially made of 6 time bound layers. This is space time phenomenon which Ian Bentley also talks about it. One is a site, which generally does not change...

Once a kit is developed, if a standard structure is acceptable in an owner-driven process and this kind of intervention is upgradeable temporary shelter then budgeting, procurement and distribution of standardized kits is a relatively small, simple operation...

And we have to understand when we are dealing with this kind of poor communities, one has to look at the livelihoods framework... on one hand, they are already subjected the vulnerability context, they are already in the context, which will have some influence on their access to the abilities...

The enabling approach, how we can enable this process and one is the finance you know because this is one the enabling approach recognizes the bottleneck to housing created limited access to finance...