Survey: most low-income housing financing targets higher earners
Mathew Davis, 49, lives in a homeless shelter in Austin, Texas, and supports himself by donating blood plasma. Even the cheapest housing the city offers — a $450-per-month tiny home with no running water and a communal bathroom — would be a stretch on the few hundred dollars he earns each month.
“I don’t make enough money really to afford anything,” Davis said. “I just keep trying to swim uphill.”
Meanwhile, over 4,500 units the city of Austin classifies as affordable — nearly 16% — sat vacant.
The poorest people in the U.S. face the most acute shortages of affordable homes. But a survey of state housing agencies found that the majority of low-income housing financed in recent years has been reserved for households earning 50% of an area’s median income or above.
Some cities are now seeing an uptick in vacancies as rents for these units approach market rates. The result: apartments designated as affordable sit empty because the poorest of the poor cannot afford them. Some people are forced into homelessness and others into desperate circumstances to pay for housing they cannot afford.