Report: Low and Moderate Income Renters Priced out of Affordable Housing

Alliance Online News View in browser www.endhomelessness.org Wednesday, December 16, 2015 spotlight on... Report: Low and Moderate Income Renters Priced out of Affordable Housing At a time when the U.S. is experiencing a historic surge in demand for rental housing, the number of low-cost and moderately priced housing units is failing far short of demand. That’s according to the report “America’s Rental Housing” released last week by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. While the number of low income renter households competing for low cost rental units (below $400 a month) rose 40 percent from 2003 to 2013, the number of those units rose just 10 percent, JCHS researchers found. Moderate income renters faced a similar disparity over the same period, with renters competing for moderately priced units ($400 to $799) increasing 31 percent, and the units increasing just 12 percent. Overall rental housing stock has increased by approximately 8.2 million units since 2005. Nevertheless, the median asking rent for a new market-rate apartment last year reached $1,372. JCHS cites a number of trends as driving the demand for rental housing including: The bursting of the housing bubble Tightening of access to mortgage credit Household incomes falling to 1995 levels Read the report » hill update Congress to Finalize FY 2016 Appropriations Today, Wednesday, Dec. 16, Congressional leaders released the text of the omnibus spending bill for Fiscal Year (FY) 2016. Congress is currently operating under a continuing resolution (CR) that runs out at midnight tonight. To avoid a shutdown and give the House and the Senate time to pass the omnibus bill, Congress is expected to pass another CR that will last through Tuesday, Dec. 22. A final omnibus bill would fund all discretionary federal operations, including homeless assistance and affordable housing programs, through the end of the federal fiscal year on Sept. 30, 2016. The omnibus bill currently under negotiation would provide $2.250 million in funding for McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Grants, a $115 million increase over FY 2015. Report: 75 Percent of Vets Participating in Study Still Housed 6 Months Later According to a recently released report on an interagency pilot program designed to explore ways to address homelessness primarily among Post-9/11-era veterans, 76 percent of participating veterans were still living in their own places six months after exiting the program. The report, which examined the Veterans Homelessness Prevention Demonstration (VHPD), also found improvements in employment and income among participants. The program, which began in 2009, was a collaboration between the departments of Labor, Housing and Urban Development, and Veterans Affairs. Homeless and at-risk veterans were provided with health care and employment services as well as rapid re-housing and homelessness prevention assistance lasting up to 18 months. The evaluation was conducted Silber & Associates and the Urban Institute and released by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Read the report » from the blog Ending Homelessness Today the official blog of the national alliance to end homelessness Here's What You Need to Know about HUD's New Chronic Homelessness Definition by Jayme Day After years of trying to nail down a definition of chronic homelessness, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) finally released a new definition earlier this month. The new definition incorporates comments submitted over the years by a wide variety of stakeholders, including the Alliance. Now that HUD’s definition is finalized, communities will need to make adjustments to their homeless systems in order to implement the new definition and use it to help end homelessness. We think the new definition will lead to improvements. But to understand fully why it’s good for ending homelessness, you need to first understand what the new definition changes. Read more » comments » | As Rental Costs Rise, Incomes Fall, and Low-Income Renters Are Left Behind by Liza Doran Here at the Alliance, we believe the solution to homelessness is housing. Connecting homeless people to housing ends their homelessness, but finding the resources to help people access housing isn’t always easy. And unfortunately, economic trends are making this task even harder. In many places across America, there is simply not enough affordable housing available to move people out of homelessness and into permanent housing. Without this housing stock, many homeless Americans are likely to remain stuck in the homeless assistance system. Sadly, it doesn’t look like this problem is about to get better any time soon. Read more » comments » | It's Time to Break the Connection Between Foster Care and Homelessness by Mindy Mitchell Research shows that people who have spent time in the foster care system tend to become homeless at an earlier age than homeless people without foster care histories. They’re also overrepresented among the homeless youth population. It’s well known in the homeless assistance field that the foster care system itself is a feeder into youth homelessness, but this year it’s come to the attention of several senators who have introduced legislation to address the problem. Read more » comments » |