The U.S. rental crisis is easing, but nearly half of renters are still paying too much for their housing, according to a study being released Friday by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.
Forty-eight percent of renters, or 21 million people, spent more than 30 percent of their income on rent in 2015, according to the report.
Anyone who spends more than 30 percent of his or her income on housing is “cost-burdened,” in the eyes of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, meaning that he or she might have troubling holding their finances together.
A quarter of renters are “severely cost burdened,” meaning that they spend more than 50 percent of their incomes on rent. More than 11 million people fall into that category.
Those numbers have improved slightly in recent years as unemployment has declined. At the same time, significantly fewer homeowners are facing affordability problems, as the share that is burdened has fallen from 30.4 percent in 2010 to 23.9 percent in 2015.
Nevertheless, the problems facing renters could grow worse in the years ahead, as the center has previously warned. The issue is that two groups who tend to rent rather than buy — seniors and lower-income minorities — are set to grow.
Through 2025, the Baby Boom generation will add more than 11 million people to the ranks of seniors, and many will be looking for apartments. At the same time, minorities will account for three-quarters of household growth, with Hispanics accounting for one-third.
For now, the situation is particularly bad in big coastal cities, such as Miami and Los Angeles, where about 60 percent of renters face cost burdens. In those places, as well as big cities such as New York and Washington, many middle-class households are stretching to pay for housing.
Past secretaries of Housing and Urban Development have said that the U.S. faces an affordable housing crisis. Ben Carson, President Trump’s HUD secretary, said on entering office that he wants to propose an affordable housing plan after hearing from people around the country. Speaking last week to an appropriations committee, Carson said that “we have three to four times as many people in need of [housing assistance] as we’re able to provide. But if we continue along the same kinds of ways that we’ve been doing it for the last several years we’re just — we’re treading water.”
