If you really want to provide housing for the poor, you need to revisit the ideas of Le Corbusier in light of the findings of Christopher Alexander.
Google didn't really help, and it sounds like you have something specific in mind.
Where I think Alexander's work comes in is where the Modernism movement started - rationalism in architecture. _A Pattern Language_ is essentially a set of inductive inferences about what works in urban planning and what doesn't. A lot of what went wrong with modernist projects stem from ignoring reality.
I think project cities like Germany's Vauban (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/12/science/earth/12suburb.htm...) embody this spirit. Soleri's Arcosanti is also built with very much the same intentions. I think Soleri's work can actually be a good example of "Corbusier meets Alexander," but most people seem to only remember him for the arcologies in Blade Runner...