Even as the federal government provides housing assistance for 5.5 million households, 7.2 million housing units are needed for more than 10 million extremely low-income families.
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Julián Castro delivered this bad news in a report on housing for low-income renters that is “Out of Reach,” which is the name of the study.
“Our nation can’t fulfill any of our major goals — whether it’s tackling inequality, improving health care, keeping neighborhoods safe, or making sure every child gets a good education — unless we also focus on housing,” Castro wrote in this year’s annual report published by the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC).
The affordable housing situation is bleak. So bleak that “in no state, metropolitan area, or county can a full-time worker earning the prevailing minimum wage afford a modest two-bedroom apartment,” according to the report.
To afford a two-bedroom apartment at the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, a worker would need to work 112 hours a week, every week, according to the report. That means workers “would have no remaining time during the week for anything other than working and sleeping.”
To continue reading this column by Joe Davidson, go to: https://www.washingtonpost.com...ts-are-out-of-reach/
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