As the world gropes for the understanding and solutions to poverty, one of the
its typologies that has come to the fore is housing poverty. Housing poverty afflicts
developing countries in particular and solution to it may mean solution to other forms of
poverty. One of the strategies that can be used to promote the understanding of housing
poverty and hence show the way to its reduction is the decennial census of housing. This
paper intends to determine whether the decennial census of housing can be used as a
strategy for the reduction of housing poverty in Kenya. It evaluates the whole census
business and recommends that some of the missing UN-recommended housing topics be
incorporated for a complete portrait of housing poverty in the country. It also
recommends that the analysis and reporting of the census survey should be more sensitive
to the geographical and social extents of housing poverty in Kenya. This would transform
the decennial census of housing into an effective strategy for poverty reduction for Kenya
and for that matter any developing country in the world.