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More and more Americans are renting instead of owning homes, and rents are skyrocketing. New national data show that some of the families struggling the most live here in Connecticut.
Connecticut has been known for its high cost of living for decades. But research just released from the National Low-Income Housing Coalition shows that situation is getting worse, especially for the neediest families. While wages have hardly budged, housing costs have soared for renters, since demand for rental apartments is so high.
“We know that times are getting tougher for renters right now. Over the past five years, renter household growth has consistently surpassed homeowner growth," says Megan Bolton, research director at the coalition.
A report from the group released today, called Out of Reach, found no state in America where a minimum-wage earner working forty hours a week could reasonably afford a two-bedroom apartment. That’s using federal estimates of fair market rent, which are pretty low. In Connecticut you’d need to earn more than $23/hour to afford such an apartment.
That’s called the housing wage, and it’s been increasing, says the coalition’s President and CEO Sheila Crowley. "The thing that I can tell you is completely predicable about the housing wage is that it keeps going up," she says.
The Stamford-Norwalk metro area is the third most expensive jurisdiction in the U.S. for renters. There, you’d have to make more than $31/hour to afford a 2-bedroom apartment at fair market rent. Only Honolulu and San Francisco are more expensive. The National Low-Income Housing Coalition says the situation for low-income renters will only get worse if federal budget cuts known as the sequester aren’t reversed, since they will affect federal rental-assistance programs.