Housing Concerns at the State-Level:

Suboptimal housing severely interferes with individual and family well-being, including children and caregivers. This is of concern because housing instability among families with children in the United States has risen since the 2008 recession, and it increased markedly during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Oregon, Wisconsin, and Indiana, housing legislation that affects families who are homeless, who are renters, or who are buying homes has demonstrated that states can create affordable housing options, protect low-income renters and homeowners, and prevent homelessness through housing trust funds and tax credits for individuals and developers, local fair housing laws, and permanent supportive housing and rapid rehousing programs.

Safe, affordable housing is one of the most powerful determinants of individual and family health and well-being. Families with stable, independent housing are more able to provide food, clothing, transportation, and health care for themselves and their children, which reduces the likelihood of school dropout, mental health concerns, and poor overall health outcomes for all family members.

Families’ ability to obtain and sustain housing is a joint function of family income, housing costs, and housing availability. When they have high housing costs, families with children spend less on other basic needs. The central pillars of housing that are integral to optimal child development include quality, stability, affordability, and neighborhood. Housing that falls short of any of these key domains interferes with children’s and caregivers’ physical, mental, and emotional well-being, both immediately and across time.

Policy tools to help families obtain and sustain housing include increasing the supply of affordable housing, ensuring that housing meets quality standards, offering housing vouchers to individuals and families to make housing more affordable, and providing services to assist families in achieving housing stability. When considering housing policy and implications, it is important to note that families experiencing homelessness, housing instability, and high housing cost burden are not always distinct populations. Families often cycle through various levels of housing instability. This brief examines policy levers across the spectrum of housing concerns in Oregon, Wisconsin, and Indiana.

One of the central housing concerns in the United States continues to be the challenge families face in finding adequate homes to rent or purchase. These challenges have been on the rise since the 2008 recession and only worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unemployment and financial hardships due to the pandemic exacerbated existing concerns about rental affordability, particularly among lower-income households. Approximately 25% of renters and 20% of homeowners (with a mortgage) who make less than $25,000 struggle to make payments.

Additionally, households with children or people of color have disproportionately struggled to pay rent, making it especially important for policymakers to be mindful of housing availability, affordability, and quality for historically marginalized populations.

The supply and affordability of homes for purchase or rent continue to decline across the United States, but renters are experiencing deeper financial hardships than owners. The supply of single-family homes for purchase has tightened because construction of new housing fell in 2018 to its lowest level in 25 years, and in the rental market, the supply of low-rent housing stock fell by 4 million units between 2011 and 2018. Low-income tenants of color are often further limited in their residential options because of discriminatory rental screening processes.

Additionally, affordability has reduced in recent years because rents have increased at a rate faster than incomes. In 2019, approximately 30% of households in the United States were identified as “cost-burdened,” and about 14% as “severely cost-burdened.” Overall, the number of cost-burdened homeowners declined, but the number of cost-burdened renters has continued to increase. Since the 2008 downturn, there has also been growth in rent-to-own contracts or contracts for deeds, which can lead to cycles of unstable housing for families. Cost burdens for both renters and owners, already high at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, worsened through 2020, particularly in communities of color.