Post Pandemic housing inequality has increased which provides uniqueness
Aurand et al 23 - (Andrew Aurand is Senior Vice President for Research at NLIHC. He leads NLIHC’s research team in documenting the housing needs of low-income renters. Dan Emmanuel is a senior research analyst at NLIHC and worked in a range of housing and community development contexts, with a particular focus on program evaluation and community needs assessment. Matthew Clarke is Writer/Editor at NLIHC. A member of the communications team, Matthew advances the Coalition’s mission by providing technical writing and editing support to staff on major publications, external and internal communications, and development efforts. Ikra holds a BFA in arts and visual technology from George Mason University. Diane Yentel is the President and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, a membership organization dedicated to achieving racially and socially equitable public policy that ensures people with the lowest incomes have quality homes that are accessible and affordable in communities of their choice Diane is a leading national expert on housing insecurity and homelessness and works closely with members of Congress, the White House, numerous federal agencies, and partners and allies throughout the country. Emma Foley is a research Analyst at the GAP) March 2023, “The GAP A Shortage of Affordable Homes”, National Low Income Housing Coalition, https://www.nlihc.org/sites/default/files/gap/Gap-Report_2023.pdf //mish
The past three years – characterized by a global pandemic, widespread job losses, record-breaking inflation, unusually low vacancy rates, and skyrocketing rental prices – have underlined and exacerbated the financial precarity experienced by the nation’s lowest-income renters. Between January 2021 and December 2022, rental prices increased 22% nationally (Apartment List, 2022). These rent increases occurred across the country and were not confined to certain markets. As prices increased precipitously, the supply of rental housing affordable to extremely low- and very lowincome renters declined by more than one million units, continuing a long-term trend of a diminishing supply (U.S. Census Bureau, 2022b & 2020; Joint Center for Housing Studies, 2022; Hermann, 2020). Meanwhile, rental vacancy rates reached their lowest point in nearly four decades. With only 5.6% of rental units vacant at the end of 2021, renters’ choices about where to live became more and more limited (U.S. Census Bureau, 2023). Despite small improvements, the average vacancy rate in 2022 was 5.8%, a level not seen since the 1980s (U.S. Census Bureau, 2023). These trends are reflected in NLIHC’s most recent analysis of affordable and available rental homes for various income groups. Each year, NLIHC uses American Community Survey (ACS) data to estimate how many affordable rental homes are available to extremely low-income households – those with incomes at or below the federal poverty guideline or 30% of AMI, whichever is greater – and other income groups (Box 1). Affordable homes are those with rents that do not exceed 30% of a given income threshold. Homes are affordable and available for a specific income group if they are affordable and are either vacant or not occupied by a higher-income household. The Gap report provides estimates of affordable housing needs in the U.S., including in each state, the District of Columbia (D.C.), and the 50 largest metropolitan areas.2 Extremely low-income renters likely have even fewer housing options now than they did prior to the pandemic. Between 2019 and 2021, the shortage of affordable and available rental homes for them increased by 8%, from 6.8 million to 7.3 million (U.S. Census Bureau, 2022c; U.S. Census Bureau, 2020). As this report shows, we cannot successfully resolve our affordable housing crisis without housing assistance that adequately meets the housing needs of renters with the lowest incomes.