The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) recently released its 2025 edition of The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes. The report offers an update on the persistent shortfall in housing for extremely low-income renters. According to the report, the United States lacks 7.1 million rental homes that are both affordable and available to households earning at or below the federal poverty level or 30 percent of area median income (AMI), whichever is greater. This translates to just 35 homes available for every 100 extremely low-income renter households.

While the shortfall has declined slightly from the 7.3 million homes reported in recent years, the national supply remains grossly inadequate as no state or major metropolitan area has a sufficient number of affordable and available units for its lowest-income renters. According to the report, in several high-cost states such as California, Nevada, and Oregon, the number of units available for every 100 extremely low-income renters falls below 25. And at the metropolitan level, Las Vegas and Dallas are among the hardest-hit areas, with fewer than 15 units available per 100 extremely low-income renter households.

Structural Market Failure

The NLIHC attributes the crisis to structural failures in the private rental housing market. The rents that extremely low-income households can afford often fall far below what is needed to finance the construction or maintenance of housing. While 7.1 million units are technically affordable to these renters, nearly half are occupied by households with higher incomes. This leaves just 3.8 million homes affordable and available to the 10.9 million extremely low-income renter households nationwide.

As a result, most extremely low-income renters live in housing they cannot afford. The report finds that 87 percent are cost-burdened, spending more than 30 percent of their income on rent, and 75 percent are severely cost-burdened, spending more than half. These financial pressures often leave households with insufficient resources for other basic needs such as food, transportation, and healthcare. Indeed, families facing severe housing cost burdens report spending significantly less on necessities, and research continues to link these burdens to poor health outcomes and increased mortality risk.

Urging a Federal Response 

While policymakers in some jurisdictions have recently turned their attention to the housing challenges of middle-income renters, the NLIHC urges a renewed focus on those with the greatest need. The report notes that housing affordability challenges among middle-income households are more localized and generally less severe than those experienced by extremely low-income renters. In contrast, the housing shortage for the lowest-income renters is national, systemic, and growing. The coalition calls for increased federal investment in deeply targeted housing assistance programs. It also supports bipartisan legislative proposals that would expand housing access and improve program efficiency, including the Family Stability and Opportunity Vouchers Act, the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, and the Eviction Crisis Act.