Major Findings: Finding 6
| Finding 6: | Poor families living in the suburbs most often face worst case needs. Both very-low-income renters and extremely-low-income renters remain more likely to have worst case problems in the suburbs than those living elsewhere. Over one-third of worst case households live in the suburbs. Reflecting continued population and job growth there, declines in units with rents affordable to extremely-low-income families were greatest in the suburbs during the 1990s. |
- Very-low-income renters have a greater likelihood of having worst case needs in the suburbs than very-low-income renters who live in central cities or outside metropolitan areas. Two-fifths, over 40 percent, of all very-low-income renters living in the suburbs have worst case needs. More than one in three worst case renters with worst case needs, over 1.8 million households, lives in the suburbs.
In 1997, slightly over half of worst case needs households, 2.7 million, lived in central cities, where there are generally larger concentrations of poverty and lower rates of homeownership than outside cities. Nevertheless, very-low-income renters living in the suburbs have the greatest likelihood of having worst case needs. Over 40 percent of very-low-income renters living in the suburbs had worst case needs for assistance, as compared to 37 percent in central cities and 32 percent in non-metropolitan areas (see Exhibit 21). Worst case problems were also most prevalent in the suburbs among extremely-low-income renters: fully 69 percent of extremely-low-income renters living in the suburbs had worst case needs for assistance, as compared to 58 percent in central cities and 54 percent in nonmetropolitan areas. In part, these differentials reflect the fact that renters were less likely to receive rental assistance in the suburbs: in 1997, 25 percent of suburban very-low-income renters reported housing assistance compared to 29 percent in both cities and nonmetropolitan areas.
Between 1991 and 1997, however, the number of very-low-income renters participating in some rental assistance program apparently grew by 21 percent in the suburbs, while remaining stable in cities and dropping slightly in nonmetropolitan areas.21 Thus, since worst case needs grew at average rates over this period in all three locations, the rise in suburban assistance may well have helped keep worst case problems from rising yet more rapidly there. The suburban increase in assisted households may also reflect movement by assisted renters closer to suburban jobs.
- Losses in units affordable to extremely-low-income renters were greatest in the suburbs during the 1990s, both absolutely and relatively.
The location of high numbers of worst case renters in suburban areas of major metropolitan areas can be explained by a number of interrelated factors. Many suburban rental markets already have shortages of units affordable and available to extremely-low-income families, and such units are most likely to experience rent rises in neighborhoods that have newer housing, more owners, and higher incomes.22
Moreover, the national decline between 1991 and 1997 in units affordable to renters with incomes below 30 percent of area median was greatest in the suburbs. As Exhibit 22 illustrates, the number of units affordable to extremely-low-income renters dropped by almost 200,000 in the suburbs, a decline of 10 percent. Over the same period, units with such extremely low rents fell by 2 percent in cities and 5 percent outside metropolitan areas.
Because suburbs are experiencing faster growth in both population and employment than either central cities or counties outside of metropolitan areas, such pressures on housing markets are likely to continue or increase, threatening the few remaining units affordable to the lowest-income renters there.
21 As discussed in Exhibit 1, however, growth in housing assistance during this period is likely to be overstated by the AHS because of the major changes in assistance questions between 1995 and 1997.
22Greater upward filtering of rents in such neighborhoods was identified in "Affordable Rental Housing: When to Build, When to Preserve, When to Subsidize?" a 1997 HUD-PD&R study of housing market dynamics in 41 metropolitan areas.
|
| 
