A/68/289 programmes have largely ignored the impact on tenants and have sometimes even failed to notice that most target settlements even contain tenants. 83 In some cases, the upgrading programmes even prohibit owners from letting upgraded properties. 84 Such situations are incompatible with the obligation of States to promote the right to adequate housing, inter alia, by facilitating the “self-help” efforts of disadvantaged groups. 85 However, there are a few reliable programmes that include direct subsidies and cheap loans to owners who need to repair their properties and to owners who wish to extend their property to accommodate additional tenants. 86 7. Summary 43. While increasing access to homeownership for low-income households through credit has proved to lead to overindebtedness and housing crises, rental housing has the potential to promote a range of more affordable options, while reducing financial risk and enabling better mobility. 44. Adequate housing must be in a location that allows access to employment options and public services. This is particularly relevant to poor households since the financial costs of travelling to work can place excessive demands upon already limited budgets. 87 With the support of State intervention, through rent subsidies to low-income households, the provision of State land to low-income rental and other measures, a private rental sector has the potential to promote access to better located, adequate housing for low-income households in urban settings. 45. For low-income households, ensuring a high degree of security of tenure in the private rental market is of the utmost importance since poor tenants cannot afford the costs associated with a change of dwelling or with challenging evictions and cannot compete in a completely unregulated private rental market (even when receiving housing benefits). It is therefore also necessary to ensure that regulation and accountability are respected in order to prevent economic de facto evictions and to enable low-income households to access affordable rental housing in urban areas that are well located. 46. Evidence indicates that both demand- and supply-side subsidies for the private rental sector are more cost effective and less costly then subsidies for homeownership and are therefore more compatible with the obligation of States to make use of the maximum available resources in order to ensure the progressive realization of the right to adequate housing. A regulated and effective housing benefit system is necessary to ensure various aspects of the right to adequate housing, including affordability, non-discrimination and habitability, while also enhancing the opportunities for individuals to exercise a number of other human rights, including the right to work, the right to education and the right to health. In __________________ 83 84 85 86 87 16/24 Kumar, “The research-policy dialectic” (see footnote 41 above), p. 668. E. Rojas, ed., Building Cities: Neighbourhood Upgrading and Urban Quality of Life (InterAmerican Development Bank, 2010); see also F. Magalhães and F. di Villarosa, eds., Slum Upgrading: Lessons Learned from Brazil (Inter-American Development Bank, 2012). See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights General Comment No. 4, para. 10. Such as the “plan terrazas” programme implemented in the 1970s in Colombia. See T. Johnson, “Upward filtering of housing stock: a study of upward filtering of housing stock as a consequence of informal settlement upgrading in developing countries”, Habitat International, No. 11, pp. 173 and 187. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights General Comment No. 4, para. 8 (f). 13-42184