NEW ORLEANS (press release) – The Gap: A Shortage of Affordable Homes, a new report by HousingLOUISIANA and the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) finds a national shortage of 7.1 million affordable and available rental homes for extremely low-income renter households – those with incomes at or below the poverty level or 30% of their area median income, whichever is greater.
In Louisiana, there are 184,085 extremely low-income households and just 42 affordable and available rental homes for every 100 of those households. To close the gap, Louisiana needs to make 106,000 more homes affordable for extremely low-income households by expanding access to rental assistance and building deeply affordable rental homes.
To make matters worse, 76% of extremely low-income renters in Louisiana are severely housing cost-burdened, spending more than 50% of their income on housing, with little left over for food, healthcare, or other basic necessities. These findings come amid unprecedented attacks on federal housing assistance programs and the agencies that administer them.
“I see firsthand how rising rental prices in Louisiana are placing a heavy burden on low-income tenants,” said Kentrell Jones, Executive Director/CEO of the East St. Tammany Habitat for Humanity. “These costs threaten their financial well-being and hinder their chances of creating a secure and stable home.”
“With the insurance crisis worsening the cost of housing for homeowners and renters, it’s imperative that state and local officials invest every dollar that can be spared into their communities in order to make homes more hurricane resilient and to lower utility costs,” said Andreanecia Morris, President of HousingLOUISIANA. “We can’t afford to lose more of our people. Louisiana is suffering a significant population loss. Making this investment in community is the economic boom the state needs – not more corporate welfare or investments in the worst kind of predatory industry. It’s time to prioritize Louisiana’s future over billion-dollar extractors who take from our state without giving back.”
Released annually, The Gap investigates the affordability and availability of rental homes for households of different income levels nationwide and in every state and major metropolitan area. The supply of affordable rental housing for extremely low-income households remains deeply inadequate in every state, including ours.
The private market, without subsidy, is unable to provide an adequate supply of housing affordable to the lowest-income renters. What extremely low-income renters can afford to pay for rent does not cover the development and operating costs of new housing and is often insufficient to provide an incentive for landlords to maintain older housing.
The result is a systemic shortage of affordable housing for extremely low-income renters impacting nearly every community. Subsidies are needed to produce new affordable housing, preserve existing affordable housing, or subsidize the difference between what the lowest-income renters can afford to pay and market rents.
“Our neighbors with the lowest incomes face staggering challenges with housing affordability. Three quarters of the lowest-income renters nationwide are severely cost-burdened,” said NLIHC Interim President and CEO Renee Willis. “It is a sad fact that only one in four households who qualify for housing assistance receive it. Attempts to cut deeply insufficient resources for housing assistance in the face of so much unmet need are senseless. We also need to support, not undermine, agencies like HUD to ensure that housing assistance programs are administered as efficiently as possible. There is no path to addressing the housing crisis for the lowest-income renters that doesn’t involve increasing resources for assistance and supporting the agencies that administer our housing programs.”
Learn more about The Gap by visiting: https://nlihc.org/gap
About HousingLOUISIANA
HousingLOUISIANA is a statewide initiative aimed at meeting Louisiana’s housing needs and create a statewide network of regional housing alliances to ensure better collaboration across the state. Under the #PutHousingFirst banner, Louisiana has built out its Housing Triad, a multi-pronged strategy transforming the affordable housing marketplace across the state. This alignment supports a housing-centered foundation for intersectional community-rooted initiatives designed to respond to climate change, criminal justice reform, racial inequity, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the hurricanes that have devastated South Louisiana over the last few years.
