A record number of Americans can’t afford their rent. Lawmakers are scrambling to help
DENVER — Single mother Caitlyn Colbert watched the rent for her two-bedroom apartment double, then triple, then quadruple over the past decade in Denver — from $750 to $3,374 last year.
Every month, like millions of Americans, Colbert juggled her costs. Pay rent or swim team expenses for one of her three children. Rental or school supplies. Rent or groceries. Colbert, a social worker who helps people stay afloat financially, often came home to notices giving her 30 days to pay rent and a late fee or risk eviction.
“Every month you just have to budget and you still come up short,” she said, adding what became a monthly refrain: “Well, at least this month we have $13 left.”
Millions of Americans, especially people of color, are facing the same painful decisions as a record number struggle with unaffordable rent increases, a crisis fueled by rising prices due to inflation, a shortage of affordable housing and the end of pandemic relief.
The latest data from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, released in January, shows that a record 22.4 million renter households – or half of renters nationwide – will lose more than 30% of their income in 2022 spend on rent. units – with rents under $600 – also fell that year to 7.2 million, 2.1 million fewer than a decade earlier.
These factors have contributed to a dramatic increase in eviction filings and record numbers of people becoming homeless.
“It’s one of the worst years we’ve ever seen,” said Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a senior research associate at the Harvard Center, who added that the level of cost-burdened households in 2022 has not been seen since the Great Recession in 2022. 2008, when 10 million Americans lost their homes to foreclosure.
After failing to make a significant dent in the problem over the past decade, state and federal lawmakers in the US are making housing a priority in 2024 and throwing the kitchen sink on the issue – including proposing to implement eviction protections implement zoning reforms, annual rent increases and spend tens of billions of dollars building more housing.
Hardest hit are renters who made less than $30,000, and who, after paying rent and utilities, were left with an average of just $310 a month, Airgood-Obrycki said.
“So you can certainly imagine the trade-offs that have to happen,” she said. “Cost-burdened renters spend less on things like food, health care and retirement. So there are significant implications for the long-term well-being of these households.”
In Denver, the roof of Colbert’s bathroom partially collapsed last year due to a leak, and the landlord delayed repairs even as rent rose $200 a month. It was the last straw for Colbert, who moved in with family and bought a house through Habitat for Humanity, which gave her a low-interest loan.
“It’s so disheartening to have to pay so much and not even see where your rent is going,” Colbert said. “It just hits you: ‘This is for nothing.'”
In Auburn, Massachusetts, widespread rent increases have already reached the last bastion of affordable housing.
Just off a highway along a pond, residents of the American Mobile Home Park are facing rent increases of more than 40%. Many tenants, especially seniors and others on fixed incomes, have not signed new leases with these increases. The group Lawyers For Civil Rights has sent a letter to the landlord accusing it of “unconscionable rent increases” and failing to provide crucial services such as adequate trash and snow removal.
“How am I going to pay for that?” said Amy Case, 49, wondering how she would balance the $345 monthly increase with the $200 she will have to spend on medications and the cost of a biennial MRI to monitor her brain tumor.
“I don’t know what else to cut back on,” said Case, an administrative assistant at a local university, who said she has only $300 left over each month for other necessities. “Probably less shopping. I certainly can’t cut back on my medications.”
Another tenant, 72-year-old Ann Urbanovitch, who works as a cashier at a department store, is facing a similar rent increase.
“I expected the price to go up $100, but it went up $345. “I was shocked,” she said. “I have to dip into my retirement savings… because, you know, times are tough.”
The owner of the mobile home park, Parakeet Communities, did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
As many families struggle to pay, Colorado landlords are increasingly turning to evictions. More than 50,000 evictions were filed last year, according to data from the Colorado Judicial Branch.
“2023 was the high point for eviction filings in Colorado history,” said Zach Neumann, co-CEO of the Community Economic Defense Project, which provides financial and legal assistance to Coloradans struggling with rent.
Monique Gant, the mother of two boys, packed her belongings into boxes in a Denver suburb last week after losing a lengthy eviction battle, planning to move between long-stay hotel rooms and her RV for the time being. Gant’s hair has thinned from the stress she buries under a stoic face in front of her children.
“My kids assume I’m Super Woman,” Gant said. But “when I take a shower and turn on some music, I cry.”
She said her sons, ages 10 and 11, have already gotten into fights at school and on the bus, and are not as involved in classes as they used to be.
About 40% of the people who face eviction each year are children — about 2.9 million, according to a study co-authored by Nick Graetz of Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, who said research shows that the turbulence and deportation has far-reaching consequences on the mental health of children. development.
“We can see things really going wrong for children facing deportation,” Graetz said.
In Congress, lawmakers are working on a bill that would expand a federal program that gives tax breaks to housing developers who agree to set aside housing for low-income renters. Supporters say this could lead to the construction of 200,000 affordable homes. Some lawmakers are also calling for more rental assistance, including a significant increase in funding for housing vouchers.
“We need a bigger commitment from the federal government,” said Chris Herbert, director of the Harvard center. “Only then will the nation finally be able to make a meaningful dent in the housing affordability crisis that is making life so difficult for millions of people.”
At the state level, Colorado lawmakers have introduced a bill to limit the reasons a landlord can evict a tenant. Other bills would eliminate filing fees for tenants in an eviction case and roll back local rules that prohibit homeowners from renting out a separate unit on their property.
“If we don’t act now,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said last month in his State of the State address, largely focused on housing, “we will soon face a point of no return.”
Other states feel the same urgency.
In Washington state, a bill would require 10% of new housing around transit hubs to be affordable to low-income residents. Another would prevent landlords from increasing rent by more than 5% annually over the life of a lease.
In Massachusetts, a bill would invest more than $4 billion in building and supporting affordable housing, in response to the state’s estimate that more than 200,000 additional homes will be needed by 2030. It would be the largest housing investment in the state’s history.
However, it would come too late for the rent increase Urbanovitch will face to stay in her mobile home.
“My biggest concern,” she said, “is that I don’t really have a place to move to. There’s no place to go.’
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Casey reported from Boston.
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Bedayn is a staff member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.