A/HRC/43/43 mechanisms. States must ensure that local or regional housing strategies are adequately resourced and that local governments have the capacity to implement them; (c) The right to housing should be incorporated into relevant municipal laws, plans and programmes. Local governments should consider adopting human rights charters that protect the right to housing and provide access to justice or establish an ombuds office to address housing rights complaints and monitor the implementation of the right to housing; (d) Indigenous governments have the right to develop and determine housing programmes that are consistent with international human rights law through their institutions of self-governance and in conformity with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 72 States must ensure they have adequate resources to implement the right to housing. 73 Guideline No. 12. Ensure the regulation of businesses in a manner consistent with State obligations and address the financialization of housing 64. The private sector plays a significant role in most housing systems and in the realization of the right to housing. Investors, businesses and individuals develop, build, sell and rent housing. Financial institutions provide access to credit. Private households purchase, build or improve their own housing, and may rent it to others. The particular role played by various private actors in housing systems varies, but the State must ensure that all aspects of their involvement are consistent with States’ obligations to realize the right to housing for all. 65. The role of private investment in housing has changed in recent years. Housing has become the commodity of choice for corporate financial institutions, a security for financial instruments that are traded remotely on global markets. 74 Institutional investors buy massive amounts of affordable and social housing (sometimes entire neighbourhoods), displacing lower-income families and communities. Wealthy individuals and corporations use residential real estate to park capital, avoid taxes or hide ill-gotten gains. This has resulted in inflated land and housing costs and, often, in significant proportions of housing stock being left vacant.75 In rural areas, large-scale land acquisitions and speculation over farmland by private investors are displacing residents. 76 66. States have facilitated and encouraged the change in the role of the private sector in housing. They have provided tax breaks to real estate speculators, tax advantages for homeowners and “golden visas” to foreign investors. They have deregulated rental markets and encouraged development that primarily produces housing for the wealthy. Through legislative measures, policies and programmes, many States have treated housing as a commodity for trading and speculation, rather than as a social good and a human right. 67. A change in direction is urgently needed, and a new relationship between governments and the investors currently dominating the housing landscape must be forged. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has clarified that States violate their obligations with respect to the right to housing by failing to regulate the real estate market and the financial actors operating on that market so as to ensure access to affordable and adequate housing for all.77 68. The obligations that States must impose on businesses directly involved in the development or ownership of housing are different in kind from those that apply to other 72 73 74 75 76 77 16 Arts. 4 and 23. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, art. 4. See also A/73/176, para. 5. A/HRC/34/51. Housing Europe, The State of Housing in the EU 2019 (Brussels, September 2019). A/HRC/13/33/Add.2. General comment No. 24 (2017) on State obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the context of business activities, para. 18.