A/68/289
foreclosures and homelessness. These processes are exacerbated by the adoption of
legal and institutional adjustments aimed at facilitating foreclosures, which have
been promoted in recent years as “imperatives for developing a housing finance
system”. 15 The crisis has disproportionately affected the poorest and most
vulnerable, who were the last to join the mortgage markets and the first to suffer the
consequences of the crises owing to their low resilience to economic shocks and low
repayment abilities. 16
B.
Demand subsidies
12. 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. 17 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). 18 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).
13. The capital-grant-subsidy has been the most frequently promoted programme
to target low-income households. The approach offers cash subsidies by private
companies to cover part of the price of a dwelling for sale. 19 The Chilean
experience has been considered the model for other countries, 20 widely replicated in
Latin America (Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala,
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15
16
17
18
19
20
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World Bank, Housing Finance Policy in Emerging Markets, Loic Chiquier and Michael Lea,
eds. (Washington, D.C., 2009), pp. 94-95.
A. Colau and A. Alemany, Vidas Hipotecadas (Barcelona, Angle Editoriál-Cuadrilátero Libros,
2012), pp. 21-22; see also concluding observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights on the fifth periodic report of Spain (E/C.12/ESP/CO/5), para. 21.
Some Governments also encourage homeownership through tax exemptions on capital gains
from property or on the imputed income from homeownership. Since tenants pay rent from their
income after tax, homeowners gain by not having to pay rent and thereby accrue an additional
income.
Matthew O’Brien, “Why the mortgage interest deduction is terrible”, The Atlantic (17 July
2012).
Diana Mitlin, “New directions in housing policy”, in Global Urban Poverty: Setting the Agenda,
Allison M. Garland, Mejgan Massoumi and Blair A. Ruble, eds. (Washington, D.C., Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2007), pp. 151 and 163; see also UN-Habitat,
Affordable Land and Housing in Latin America and the Caribbean (Nairobi, 2011), p. 57.
A. Gilbert, “Power, ideology and the Washington consensus: the development and spread of
Chilean housing policy”, Housing Studies, vol. 17, No. 2 (2002), pp. 305-324.
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