Everybody else just lives where they can afford to...

There seems to be this interesting philosophy that while people who work to survive must put up with living both:
a) in the locality of their job and
b) in housing that they can afford to
that beneficiaries are somehow above this.

Ngapuhi Social Services chief executive, Arapeta Hamilton, says many Maori families group together, especially in high-rent areas such as Auckland, because it is the only way they can survive.
This is definitely not the first time that I have seen these sentiments exhibited - in fact another example that comes to mind is:
"The woman living in the most expensive state house - on land valued at $1 million - had been there five years and said if the property was sold, she would have to be relocated in the same area." (NZ Herald - original article no longer available) 

A similar one could be:
"At a hastily arranged meeting days after the occupation, the then Ngati Whatua trust board, unwilling to call in police to deal with people who were essentially family members, offered the group houses in Glen Innes. The offer was rejected. "Like hell. I'm not going to give up a million-dollar view to look at railway tracks," says Anderson."  (NZ Herald - original article no longer available)

Can anyone give me a coherent argument why we should continue to support the idea of people living in housing that they cannot afford so that they can be in areas in which drug and alcohol abuse is high?  It is already a posit of the above situation that these people are not in this locality because of jobs...
Tags: nz, newzealand, benefits