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A home is a place of shelter and security, somewhere to return to at the end of the day. But what we ask of a home changes with the world outside it. As the weather becomes harder to predict, keeping out the sun and rain is no longer enough. How well a home, and a city around it, copes with extreme heat and heavy rain shapes the health, safety and wellbeing of the families living inside.This year’s World Habitat Day theme, “Adequate Housing for All”, is a timely reminder that adequate housing has always meant more than shelter. A home should be affordable, secure, connected to essential services and safe to live in. The question is what those standards require as extreme weather events put homes to harder tests.Thailand already knows how dangerous heat can be. Globally, the past eleven years have been the warmest on record, and the World Meteorological Organization expects a strong El Niño to disrupt temperature and rainfall patterns further into 2027. During the hot season, heat combined with humidity can reach levels that Thai authorities consider extremely dangerous to health.Too much water can be just as dangerous. In late September, more than 330 millimetres of rain fell on Bangkok over several days, flooding homes and roads. Floods test not only houses, but also the drains, roads and services around them. Dykes, pumps and canals remain essential, but infrastructure alone cannot keep pace with rainfall that increasingly exceeds what systems were designed for. Thailand’s flood resilience must move towards a governance and data-driven approach, embedded across the full cycle of prevention, preparedness, response and recovery, at both national and local levels.Thailand’s National Adaptation Plan recognises the climate risks facing cities and calls for greater attention to the people most vulnerable to them. One example of this being put into practice is the “Cooling House” initiative, implemented by the Community Organizations Development Institute (CODI) in partnership with UN-Habitat. Through it, low-income residents have explored ways to reduce indoor heat with roof ventilation, fans and greenery, and some households have reported indoor temperatures up to 10°C lower. One resident described how a household member who had been bedridden was able to get up and walk again once the home became cooler. For that family, a cooler home meant far more than comfort. It meant mobility and dignity.A safe home also depends on the neighbourhood around it. Through its Baan Mankong programme, CODI helps low-income communities to secure land, plan neighbourhoods and improve their homes, along with the streets, drains and services that serve them. UN-Habitat’s World Cities Report, launched at the World Urban Forum this year, highlighted this community-led approach as an example, reflecting Thailand’s wider commitments under the New Urban Agenda. This work also builds on 80 years of the Thailand-UN partnership, in which preparing for a changing climate plays a growing part.These pressures are not felt equally. Rising fuel and living costs, driven in part by the crisis in the Middle East, add strain to families already stretched. For households with the least resources, preparing for extreme weather and recovering from it can compete with other basic needs.The opportunity now is to bring these solutions beyond the households and neighbourhoods that pioneered them. That means building protection from heat and flooding into housing policy, local planning and financing, starting with the most vulnerable households. Government and local authorities can continue to lead that effort. Banks and businesses can offer financing for better home ventilation, insulation, heat-reflecting and solar roofs, shading and greenery. Community revolving funds, where repayments are recycled to help finance improvements for other families in line, could extend these solutions further.Thailand’s communities are already finding practical ways to keep homes cooler and safer. As the climate changes, so must our idea of a home. If a home is to offer safety, dignity and a good quality of life, protection from extreme weather must increasingly be part of what we mean by adequate housing. That should hold for every family, especially those with the least resources to prepare.Michaela Friberg-Storey is the representative of the UN Secretary-General and UN Resident Coordinator in Thailand. Srinivasa Popuri is the Chief of UN-Habitat Multi-Country Office, Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific.Originally published by Bangkok Post.