Analysis of two alternative housing policies: rental and collective housing 2013, para. 12
Paragraph- Paragraph text
- A major component of the shift to demand-side housing policies has been the promotion of Government subsidies for privately produced residential units, mobilizing public resources and directing them to individual potential buyers with the idea of reducing Government intervention. The rationale behind the programmes is that low-income households will be able to finance their housing through the free market, with their own savings, assisted by a down-payment subsidy or a subsidized loan. Such types of subsidies include: (a) direct payments, either up front (to lower the amount of the loan, closing costs, down payment or insurance premium, or capital grant) or on a monthly basis; (b) subsidies tied to savings programmes; (c) interest-rate or interest-payment subsidies; (d) tax subsidies and exemptions tied to mortgage payments or real estate taxation. The last three types of subsidies are extremely costly, target mainly middle-income households and tend to have regressive effects (for example, in the United States the top 20 per cent of households earning over $ 100,000 per annum gain 75 per cent of the tax relief on mortgage payments). Such policies indirectly discriminate against low-income households, in particular when implemented as the main housing policy, since their cost to national budgets is often enormous, while they mostly benefit mostly the more affluent households (see A/67/286, paras. 34-37).
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Means of adoption
- N.A.
- Topic(s)
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
- Paragraph type
- Other
- Reference
- SR Housing, Report to the UNGA (2013), A/68/289, para. 12.
- Paragraph number
- 12
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