Harvard Report Says Blacks, Latinos Hit Hardest by High Rental Costs
A report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) reveals that in 2022, a record 22.4 million renter households in the US were burdened by housing costs, an increase of two million families since 2019. Rising rental costs, up 21% since 2001 compared to a 2% rise in renters’ incomes, left 12.1 million families spending half their income on housing. The report also notes that eviction filings returned to pre-pandemic levels as relief measures expired, causing homelessness to rise to a record 653,100 in 2023. Meanwhile, existing programs intended to alleviate rental costs, such as HUD’s Housing Voucher Program, prove inadequate as 40% of voucher recipients fail to secure a lease. Consequently, the lack of affordable housing is increasingly viewed as a crisis, with Diane Yentl, President and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, asserting that more than 10 million of America’s lowest-income households pay at least half their income on rent and utilities.
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