Synopsis
"This point is made in an authoritative report, Making Housing Affordable, published by the Policy Exchange think tank. It repeats the well known fact that people in social housing are much less likely to work than people in private housing — 46% employment as against 92% in the private sector, what’s known as the “unexplainable gap”. In London, where social housing is mixed into rich areas very close to plenty of job opportunities, unemployment is at this same terrible level. This goes along with other disadvantages, such as poor mental health and poor progress at school. Yet the report says the cost to the exchequer of social housing (in direct housing costs) is £15 billion a year — and this to house only about 4m people rather badly."
Making Housing Affordable: A new vision for housing policy