Alliance Online News: Demand for Rental Housing Surges, Homeownership Declines

Alliance Online News View in browser www.endhomelessness.org Tuesday, July 28, 2015 spotlight on... Report: Demand for Rental Housing Surges as Homeownership Declines Rental households have grown by 770,000 a year since 2004 while the number of homeowners declined for the eighth year in a row, according to the “The State of the Nation’s Housing 2015” released in June by the Joint Center of Housing Studies of Harvard University. Among the factors that researchers cited as driving the significant decline in homeownership, which is disproportionately affecting people between the ages 34 to 44 and 45 to 54, are the erosion of household incomes and limited access to financing. Researchers also found that the number of renters who were housing cost burdened has reached a record high. Over the last 10 years, renters ages 25 to 34 who devoted more than 30 percent of their income to housing increased grew from 40 to 46 percent; while renters of the same age group who devoted more than 50 percent of their income to housing grew from 19 to 23 percent. Read the report » 2015 National Conference Materials Now Available Online Presentation materials from our 2015 National Conference on Ending Homelessness workshops are now available on the Alliance website. The materials cover a wide range of topics discussed during conference workshops, from the role of the child welfare system in ending youth homelessness to best practices in serving chronically homeless veterans to the meaning of functional zero, and much more. We will continue to add materials to the website as they become available. If you are a conference presenter who would like materials from your workshop added to the website, please email Alliance communications associate Emanuel Cavallaro at ecavallaro@naeh.org. Access the presentations » alliance events Upcoming Webinar: Coordinated Entry and Systems Change Wednesday, August 26, 1 to 2 p.m. EDT On Wednesday, August 26, the Alliance will host a webinar on implementing coordinated entry. In this webinar, Cynthia Nagendra, director of the Alliance’s Center for Capacity Building, will provide an overview of coordinated entry, as well as the critical components: access, diversion, assessment and prioritization, and referral. This webinar is intended for providers in communities that are just getting started with coordinated entry, as well as those working to improve their existing coordinated entry systems. Register » from the blog Ending Homelessness Today the official blog of the national alliance to end homelessness 3 Things I've Learned from Working at the Alliance by Kate Seif It is with a mixture of excitement and sadness that I write this “goodbye” blog post for the Alliance. After more than five years here, I am ready to take on the challenge of grad school, but I will miss working with passionate and driven people across the country dedicated to such an important topic. In my time here, I’ve learned a few things – well, I’ve learned a ton of things, but for the sake of this post, I’ll narrow it down to just the big ones. Read more » comments » | Report: Affordable Housing Increasingly Unavailable to Low-Income Renters by Liza Doran Here at the Alliance, we believe that homelessness has a solution: housing. This solution sounds simple, right? In many ways, it is. So if the solution to homelessness is so simple, why haven’t we ended homelessness yet? In large part, the answer lies in a lack of affordable housing. Recent economic and housing trends have resulted in a shortfall of affordable housing, particularly for low-income households. This in turn has left many people homeless and many more people vulnerable to homelessness. A recent report on housing and rental market trends from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, The State of the Nation’s Housing, shows that rents have been rising across the nation while the supply of affordable housing has been falling. The growing disparity has forced many low-income renters (particularly those in high-cost markets) into precarious positions and placed them at particular risk of homelessness. Read more » comments » | Reflections on #NAEH15: Ensuring Forward Momentum by David Wertheimer As someone well into my second decade of NAEH conferences, I always come to the gathering with the hope and expectation of learning about new solutions to homelessness, engaging with interesting people, and honing my own skills in the field. This year, I was (once again) not disappointed. The level of knowledge – and sophistication – that our field has achieved is impressive. We can, with increasing confidence, say that we know what it takes to make homelessness rare, brief and  non-recurring, and how to apply our shared wisdom in urban, suburban and rural settings to minimize, or even prevent, the crisis of homelessness for unaccompanied youth, adults or families. Read more » comments » |