Report Highlights Affordable Housing Shortage

The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) recently released a new report, The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes, which finds a national shortage of 7.2 million affordable and available rental homes for extremely low income (ELI) renter households. These are households earning up to 30 percent of their area median income. The report also shows that there are only 35 affordable and available units for every 100 ELI renter households nationwide and that 71 percent of ELI renter households are severely housing cost-burdened, spending more than half of their income on housing. The report points out that the supply of affordable and available rental homes ranges widely across the states, from only 15 for every 100 ELI renter households in Nevada to 59 for every 100 ELI renter households in Maine.