Foreign Property News | Posted by Hnin Ei Khin
The cost of fixing the nation’s widening affordable housing shortage measures in the billions of dollars.
But if the healthcare costs that come with this lack of housing security are factored in, replenishing and expanding our low-income housing stock becomes an even better investment.
During a press call about The Gap—the National Low-Income Housing Coalition’s annual report on the state of the nation’s housing—Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the NLIHC, described a situation at a breaking point.
Today, more than 8 million Americans spend more than half their income on housing, meaning that these severely rent-burdened households have little left every month to pay for food, transportation, and healthcare.
No state or city in the entire country has an adequate supply of housing for extremely low-income housing population; California alone is short one million units. The political responses to this crisis couldn’t be more opposed.
The Trump administration, in its latest budget proposal, suggests slashing funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by more than 16 percent, with those cuts affecting public housing and the maintenance and improvement of public housing buildings, and wants to add work requirements to existing programs.
At the same time, according to Yentel, the housing programs proposed by Democratic presidential candidates such as senators Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris offer bold solutions, “the likes of which, in scale and scope, we haven’t seen in decades.”
“We have the resources, but lack the political will,” Yentel added.
The gaps in available housing for extremely low-income Americans—defined as a family of four making $25,750, or 30 percent of the area median income, whichever is greater—continue to grow.
Only 37 of 100 rental units across the nation are available for extremely low-income renters, 48 percent of whom are seniors with disabilities. A cross the country, the supply of units for extremely low-income renters decreased 7 percent in 2017 alone.
In many growing metro areas, the situation is much worse. Houston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and Orlando all have less than 20 affordable and available rental homes per 100 rental households.
For instance, a severely cost-burdened extremely low-income family of four with monthly income of $1,839, will, after paying for an average two-bedroom apartment at fair market rent, only have $690 left over to pay for everything else, including food and medicine.
Ref: Property Report