ABSTRACT
Up until now, little information has been available on either the extent and nature of self-help in deprived urban neighbourhoods or the barriers to participation that are confronted by those seeking to engage in such activity. Here, therefore, the results are reported of a baseline study of whether households manage to perform tasks that they perceive as necessary and the forms of work that they use in order to perform these tasks. First, therefore, this chapter examines the ability of households in deprived urban neighbourhoods to get tasks completed that they perceive as necessary. Second, it investigates the extent to which self-help is used in order to perform these tasks in order to provide some measure of its importance in household coping practices.
