Abstract :
The Community Mortgage Program is unique to the Philippines, and has gained a certain international reputation for successful innovation. It was initiated in 1988 to help the urban poor — mainly squatter communities — to purchase the land they had been living on, and thus to legitimise their status. This paper introduces the principles of the programme, and reports on some of the problems that have been facing it, as well as on current attempts to make it financially sustainable. As the Community Mortgage Program is being considered for implementation in a number of other countries, the paper also reviews the circumstances in which a remodelled programme could be implemented elsewhere.
