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housing action
Evergreen State tied 8th worst in the nation for affordable housing gap

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Joaquin Uy, Communications Specialist

When it comes to finding an affordable home, challenges continue for Washington’s lowest income renters. This is according to a recently released joint report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) and the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance (Housing Alliance).

The report is titled, Housing Spotlight: The Affordable Rental Housing Gap Persists. It reveals an acute and persistent shortage of rental homes across the nation that are both affordable and available to the lowest income Americans. The numbers specific to Washington State are particularly glaring:

Two full-time workers with a child earning Washington State’s minimum wage make about $39,000 per year. This number is just under 50% of the median income for a Seattle-Bellevue area family of three. In this income range, only 55 affordable and available units exist for every 100 households.

Unsurprisingly, according to the report, the less you earn, the less affordable homes available to you.

For instance in Spokane, where the area median income (AMI) is approximately $63,000, wait staff make about $23,000 a year or less (roughly 30% of AMI). For every 100 of these workers, the state only has 28 affordable and available homes.

The average fast food worker in Washington State earns roughly $12,000 a year. This is about 15% of the state’s median income (approximately $74,000). According to our findings, Washington residents earning this much will likely spend a great deal of time looking for a home because only 16 affordable housing units are available for every 100 similar households. Renters with incomes at or below 15% also tend to be elderly or disabled individuals living on fixed incomes, such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI). In this income group, 90% of these renters spent more than half of their income on housing costs.

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These harsh numbers not only contribute to Washington’s overall homelessness rate, but also makes the Evergreen State tied for 8th worst in terms of how many affordable and available homes we have for every 100 extremely low-income households. Statewide, there’s a need for 161,243 more rental homes to close the affordable housing gap for extremely low-income renters.

It’s always been difficult for lower income households to find affordable homes, and today it’s harder than ever. Renting has become an increasingly common choice among higher income households since the housing crisis. Nationally, the number of renters with incomes greater than 120% of area median income increased by 1.2 million between 2009 and 2012, transforming the rental market by putting upward pressure on rents.

"It’s a troubling paradox," says Housing Alliance Executive Director Rachael Myers. "Washington State is home to many Fortune 500 companies and successful corporations. Yet, despite this, the gap between the housing need and the availability of rental homes affordable to Washington’s most vulnerable continues. With the release of these numbers, the State Housing Trust Fund and local housing levies become extremely important components to the solution of this persistent crisis."

Despite the dreary numbers, the Housing Alliance believes this is a problem that can be solved. To this end, we’re currently in the process of finalizing our 2015 State Legislative Priorities. We’ll be releasing our agenda as 2014 draws to a close.

At the federal level, NLIHC calls for funding of the National Housing Trust Fund (NHTF). The NHTF is a program signed into law in 2008 to distribute dedicated sources of revenue to states to preserve and expand the supply of rental housing targeted to extremely low-income households.

The report is available here:
1. Report Text
2. Report Appendices

More information about the NHTF is available at their website, nlihc.org/issues/nhtf

 


 

 

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