ABSTRACT
The Capability Approach appeared as a sophisticated way to assess people's living conditions and well-being. This, in a moment in which neoliberal policies had hijacked and distorted the 'housing as freedom' discourse promoted by self-help defenders, and had prescribed a disengagement of the State. Housing interventions, therefore, have the responsibility for creating capabilities during the project, and guaranteeing that people will enjoy capabilities in their living environments after the project. Projects can apply various types of individual freedom at various stages of the project: freedom in project-scope definition, financial management, project design, procurement and construction. Capabilities are not created when people are left alone to make their own decisions. They are created when people have, or are given, choices and when they have abilities to make these decisions and act upon them. The stakeholder theory helps to complete a freedom-based approach to low-cost housing.
