Across the United States, the lack of affordable housing availability for extremely low income and very low-income households has reached epidemic proportions. There is not a single state in the country with enough affordable and available units of housing to house all the extremely low-income households that qualify. The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development has responded to this crisis with assistance in the form of the Housing Choice Voucher program; however, only one in four families eligible to receive a voucher actually receive assistance. Cities, counties and states across the United States are being forced to acknowledge the crisis in affordable housing and address the crisis with evidence-based and innovative affordable housing solutions. This report provides context for the affordable housing crisis and analyzes housing solutions taking place in different municipalities and states across the United States. Finally, this report will include recommendations to guide policymakers and advocates as they search for ways to increase the supply and availability of affordable housing in the years to come. Affordable housing is a problem throughout the country. As of 2012, there was not a single state in the country with enough affordable and available housing units to house all “extremely low-income households” (Arnold, Crowley, Bravve, Brundage, & Biddlecombe, 2014) (extremely low-income is defined as a family who makes less than 30 percent of an area’s median household income (Capps, 2015)). One out of every four renter households in the United States is considered extremely low-income, or ELI, with 75% of all ELI renter households spending over 50% of their monthly income on rent (Arnold et al., 2014). In 2013, there were 11.3 million households in the United States considered to be ELI, with the HUD limit for an ELI household set at $22,000 or less for a family of four (Leopold, Getsinger, Blumenthal, Abazajian, & Jordan, 2015).
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Author | Working is in progress in ACASH |
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Edited By | Saba Bilquis |