Even though mathematically more housing than needed is produced in Egypt resulting in millions of vacant homes, large portions of its residents live in inadequate housing that may lack secure tenure, safe drinking water and wastewater treatment, are crowded or are prone to collapse, as better housing is widely unaffordable. There is also a problem with homelessness especially amongst children.

Egypt has also witnessed a number of urban disasters that have led to many deaths and mass homelessness, including the 1992 Dahshur Earthquake, the 1994 Floods in Upper Egypt, and the 2008 Duweiqa Rockslide, Cairo.

Efforts to address housing inequity date back by a century at least, ranging from designing model villages, to rent control, and building public and cooperative housing. Since the 1980s, housing policy in Egypt has focused on what was termed the 'housing shortage', a quantitative estimate of needed homes, to be solved by almost solely by building public housing estates in new towns in the vacant desert periphery of existing cities. This single dimensional approach to the problem has not been able to solve it, especially in the face of increasing deregulation of the housing market, spurring the commodification and finacialization of housing.

Egypt's residential construction involves three main sectors: The Informal Private Sector; individuals that usually self-built as well as contractors that build without a building permit on either agricultural land or formal sub-divisions - some of which is referred to as slums or 'ashwaiyat (random or haphazard housing). Second are the Formal Private Sector, mostly small to large-scale contractors and real estate developers that apply for permits on government-sanctioned subdivisions and build for middle to upper-income clients. And third, the Public Sector; state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that build subsisdised public housing, as well as a growing range for profit housing for middle and upper-middle income clients.

According to the latest statistics, Egypt saw 738,000 units built in 2020/2021 by its three major producers. The informal private sector produced 402,000 units comprising 54% of all units produced last year, leading the two other sectors by a wide margin. It was followed by the formal private sector, building 170,000 units, or 23% of the total. In close third place was the public sector with 167,000 units, also garnering 23% of total production.

It is a struggle for Egypt to keep up with housing needs due to its quickly increasing and existing population. For years, the state has taken it upon itself to provide housing for the poor but this has become unsustainable as it doesn't have the budget for this type of continued providence.^{pg 85}

The minister of housing, Mustafa Madbouly, explained that "Egypt needs to build 500,000-600,000 new homes a year to keep up with demand, 70 percent of which should be aimed at the poor." The situation has been so dire that for years some Egyptians have resorted to living (and working) near and in the cemeteries. One such place is The City of the Dead in Cairo.

In July 2016, thousands of rental units were made available, as renting is easier than home ownership for many poor Egyptians. Three thousand rental units were made available in Suez.