Chapter 2 -- Continued

Because of higher poverty concentrations and lower homeownership rates, central cities have the most renters with worst case needs. But surprising numbers of renters with worst case needs live in the suburban portions of metropolitan America, and, except in the Northeast, that is where worst case needs are growing the fastest. Moving from welfare to work may require access to the suburbs -- where approximately two-thirds of new jobs are being created -- but for very-low-income renters, paying suburban rents often means paying more than half of the family's income for housing.

Nationwide, 1.8 million suburban renters had worst case needs in 1995, an increase of 146,000 since 1991. In the Western part of the United States, the change was more pronounced, with worst case needs of renters in the suburbs increasing from 570,000 to 678,000, or almost one-fifth (see exhibit 14).

Even in the South, where overall there was a modest decline in worst case housing needs between 1991 and 1995, the number of suburban households with worst case needs grew. In the Midwest, worst case needs declined slightly in central cities but increased by over 8 percent in the suburbs.

Shortages of units that are both affordable and available to extremely-low-income renters are greatest in the suburbs, the same areas in which worst case needs are growing most rapidly. Across the Nation in 1995, there were only 39 extremely-low-rent units available for every 100 extremely-low-income renters in the suburbs, compared with 43 units in central cities and 56 units in non-metro areas. (see exhibit 15).

• Even in relatively low-rent rural areas, worst case needs failed to drop.

Outside of metropolitan areas, renters are less likely to have worst case housing needs, and those renters with worst case housing problems are somewhat more likely to live in housing units with severe physical problems. Nevertheless, affordability is the overwhelming housing problem in non-metropolitan America just as it is within metropolitan areas. Over three-fourths (76 percent) of non-metropolitan households with worst case needs have severe rent burdens as their only housing problem.

Although housing costs are lower in non-metro areas, here as elsewhere in America the economic boom of the 1990s failed to reduce the number of households with worst case housing needs. The level of worst case needs in non-metro areas rose slightly between 1991 and 1993 and then did not drop at all between 1993 and 1995, remaining at 727,000 families and individuals (see exhibit 14).