Poverty is multidimensional and more complex concept. The researchers have
sufficiently explored the causes of poverty, but still have to be explored in the
context of effects of poverty. There is increasing consensus that the income and/or
consumption measures do not fully capture the qualitative dimension of poverty
such as the lack of comfort, education, health, housing, personal safety, and
social inclusion etc. Usually the poor has inadequate health and education
facilities, low housing facilities and the other similar ills. This paper explores the
housing condition of the poor by constructing the quality of the housing index
(QHI). This QHI is very detailed and comprehensive incorporating the various
dimensions in depth including housing facilities, distance of the facilities
available to the house, frequency of the use of these facilities and perception
about the services available to the households. This paper will use the recently
available country-wide micro -level data collected by Pakistan Bureau of
Statistics under the title of Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement
Survey (PSLM): Round VI (2010-11). It is concluded that urban non-poor
residents who live in ketcha houses have the highest quality of housing, on
average. Second, the urban non-poor households come who have both the land
line and mobile facilities. The third rank is observed in the rural non-poor
households who use gas as a source of cooking food. The worst quality of housing
is found in rural poor households who have almost no regular source of lighting
in their houses.