In the Netherlands people can rent a cheap house if they have a low income. All they need to do is registering on a waiting list, select houses that will be available and apply for them. The rent for these houses is about half the rent on similar houses for rent on the free market. I suppose many countries have such a system, so this is probably nothing special.

In practice many students put themselves on the waiting list, get such a house and keep living there even after they have been graduated and are earning a good salary. The weak point in the system is that you don't have to pay more rent once you are earning a better salary. That way people have an extra stimulus to improve themselves and get a better job.

Unfortunately the waiting list plays an important role in this system. For each city or region there is a separate waiting list. This keeps people from moving, even if they can get a better job. Waiting for a social house usually takes several years. So if you live in a social house and you don't have a job or you have a small job, you would loose your cheap house if you took risks and moved for a slightly better job. Also certain people are getting precedence such as recently divorced men and women, so the state pays for the consequences of a divorce.

Because social houses are so cheap most people like to live in them and therefore they are difficult to get. So sub renting social houses is very popular. For example many students have sub rented their social house to someone else, such as a friend or a younger brother or sister.

Another problem is that a too large percentage of all houses is just for people with a low income, especially in the cities. For example in Amsterdam alone this is more than 50% of the houses. So this social housing system takes up so much space that it has a large influence on the commercial house market. Because so many houses are social houses there is less supply of commercial houses, which drives up the rents and prices of commercial houses.

Some people don't even have enough income to pay a social rent. They can apply for a monthly rent allowance (rent-subsidy). There are income checks on these allowances, making the administration of this rent-subsidy complicated and expensive. If you are so intelligent that you can fill in the forms for this rent-subsidy then you probably don't need it. The effect of this subsidy is of course that people loose it when they earn more, so it is a penalty on taking care of yourself.