Others who have bought cannot afford mortgage payments, for example after losing a job. Some people are homeless, or even sleeping rough. The impact of these problems is as clear as the benefits of decent housing. There are strong associations between poor housing and poverty, deprivation, crime, educational under-achievement and ill health. People are discriminated against in looking for work or using services because of where they live.
Whole neighbourhoods suffer from neglect.
The housing market has structural problems too. Few people find the experience of buying and selling a house a pleasant or confidence-inspiring one, however happy they might be once they have moved. In some parts of the country, both in cities and in the countryside, rising house prices mean that people on modest incomes find it harder and harder to find somewhere they can afford to buy or even to rent. But in other areas, perfectly good housing stands empty because there is no demand for it. Housing Benefit, while helping people to meet their housing costs, is complex and administered inconsistently, costing the public around 840 million each year in fraud and error and creating disincentives to work for many tenants.