The National Low Income Housing Coalition’s latest issue of Housing Spotlight provides its annual examination of “the availability of rental housing affordable to” extremely low income “and low income renter households . . ..” (1) It finds that
- The number of ELI renter households rose from 9.6 million in 2009 to 10.3 million in 2013 and they made up 24% of all renter households in 2013.
- There was a shortage of 7.1 million affordable rental units available to ELI renter households in 2013. Another way to express this gap is that there were just 31 affordable and available units per 100 ELI renter households. The data show no change from the analysis a year ago.
- For the 4.1 million renter households DLI renter households in 2013, there was a shortage of 3.4 million affordable rental units available to them. There were just 17 affordable and available units per 100 DLI renter households.
- Seventy-five percent of ELI renter households spent more than half of their income on rent and utilities; 90% of DLI renter households spent more than half of their income for rent and utilities.
- In every state, at least 60% of ELI renters paid more than half of their income on rent and utilities. (1)
Given that housing affordability remained a problem during both boom times and bust and given that we should not expect another dramatic expansion of federal subsidies for rental housing, now might be a good time to ask what we can reasonably expect from the Housing Trust Fund. Should it be spread wide and thin, helping many a bit, or narrow and deep, helping a few a lot? No right answers here.