Posted on March 14, 2019 by Diane Yentel in City Lab City Lab, By Diane Yentel Today, the National Low Income Housing Coalition publishes our annual analysis of recent data, and the results are stark. Our country is in the grips of a severe and pervasive housing affordability crisis. Nationally, there is a shortage of 7 million homesaffordable and available to the lowest-income renters. Rents have risen faster than renters’ incomes over the last two decades, and while more people are renting than ever, the supply of housing has lagged. Fewer than four affordable and available rental homes exist for every 10 deeply poor renter households nationwide. As a result, record-breaking numbers of families cannot afford decent homes. The budget recently proposed by the Trump Administration would compound this crisis. As we pointed out in our public response to the budget proposal, the president would underfund rental assistance through the Housing Choice Voucher program, eliminate the national Housing Trust Fund and funding needed to repair public housing, and raise rents—by as much as three times current levels—on America’s poorest families. While the administration suggests its proposed budget would provide an increase in funding to the voucher program, this is simply false. Our report shows that no state has an adequate supply of homes affordable and available to its lowest-income renters. The shortage ranges from least severe (fewer than seven affordable and available rental homes for every 10 of the lowest-income renters in Wyoming) to most severe (fewer than two for every 10 of Nevada’s lowest-income renters).
