By improving the quality and reducing the cost of production, housing and other public structures will last longer, be better protected against disasters, and be affordable to low-income populations and accessible to persons with disabilities, which will provide a better living environment. Institutional support should also be provided in the form of industrial standards and quality control, with particular attention to energy efficiency, health, accessibility, and consumer safety and protection. Meeting the actual needs of individuals, families and their communities cannot be achieved by looking at shelter in isolation. Provision of adequate social services and facilities, improving and rationalizing urban planning and shelter design to cope firmly with the actual needs of communities, as well as provision of technical and other relevant assistance to the inhabitants of unplanned settlements are essential for the improvement of living conditions. Vulnerable groups 72.
Vulnerability is the inability to compete on an equal basis for resources and opportunities.
If vulnerability is to be reduced, there is a need to improve and ensure access by the various vulnerable groups to shelter, finance, infrastructure, basic social services, safety nets, and decision-making processes. With regard to shelter, members of vulnerable groups are especially at risk when they may have no security of tenure or where they lack basic services or face disproportionate environmental and health impacts, or because they may be excluded, either inadvertently or deliberately, from the housing market and services. Adequate shelter must be recognized as an important component of the particular care and assistance to which children and their families, as well as children living outside or without families, have a right. Special consideration must be given to the needs of children living in difficult circumstances. Because of a lack of shelter, the lives of refugees are often characterized by a loss of dignity and health.