Pooja Gawali used to live in a one-room home with no indoor plumbing. The walls were tin sheets. The roof leaked when it rained. The 32-year-old shared the cramped space with her husband, her in-laws and her husband’s two brothers.

She never knew what it meant to truly relax, she says. The lack of privacy in her home meant that she always had to always be on alert — conscious of how she sat or behaved.

That’s not uncommon in Sanjaynagar, a crowded slum in the western Indian state of Maharashtra where she lives. On mud lanes slick with goat droppings, homes press against each other. Around 900 people are squeezed into 206 metal shacks.

Today, things are very different for Gawali. In 2022, she moved into an apartment on the second floor of a newly constructed three-story building with 33 units that houses not just her own family but 30 other families from her slum neighborhood. One brother-in-law lives in the apartment below hers; the other in one above. When their home was being built, the family had a request — they wanted their apartments to be connected through an inner flight of stairs. They got that wish –- and more.

“I relish the privacy I have now,” she says. “It’s a joy to be able to live freely. We’re still a tight-knit family, but life is so much easier when everyone has their own space.”

Residents have named the three-story building Swapnapurti — Marathi for “a dream fulfilled.” It’s easy to see why. Each unit has its own living room, a single bedroom, a kitchen, bathroom with running water and balcony. Green plants and benches line the central courtyard. Bamboo screens along the walls  provide natural shade and ventilation.

Children relax outside the newly constructed apartment building.

Viraj Nayar for NPR

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Viraj Nayar for NPR

And it’s noticeably cooler. The architects used building materials like bricks made of crushed sand and ash residue that have been found to be effective insulators, deflecting heat.

A revolutionary design initiative called the Sanjaynagar Redevelopment Project is transforming the slum where Gawali lived in stages. It’s a partnership between the local government, charitable donors, nonprofits and family members. Each participating family pays 10% of the costs of construction — roughly $1,000 for a 300-square-foot  apartment —which they fund by taking out low-interest housing loans provided by the social lending platform Rang De. Rang De offers peer-to-peer lending, a financial method that connects individual borrowers directly with individual lenders, bypassing traditional banks. The federal government’s low-cost housing scheme, called the PMAY, contributes $2,500 and philanthropic donors such as the U.S.-based Currystone Foundation contributed the rest.