The just-released Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies report America's Rental Housing 2024 has found that in 2022 an all-time high of 22.4 million renters spent over 30% of their income on rent and utilities. Among cost-burdened households, 12.1 million had housing costs that were more than half of their income, an all-time high for such severe burdens. The dwindling supply of low-rent units is only worsening cost burdens, according to the report. As the study explains: "Climbing rents in recent years propelled US cost burdens to staggering new heights: in 2022, half of all US renters were cost burdened. And while rental markets are finally cooling, evictions have risen, the country is seeing the highest homelessness counts on record, and the need for rental assistance is greater than ever."
The negative personal impacts of such tight budgets force financially vulnerable renters to make awful choices. Harvard Joint Center analysis of the 2022 Consumer Expenditure Survey found that severely cost-burdened renter households in the lowest expenditure quartile spent 39% less on food and 42% less on healthcare than unburdened households. Others may end up living in overcrowded or structurally inadequate conditions, threatening their health and well-being.
Local Data
For the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson area, 86% of renters are considered moderately burdened by the report, and 103% severely burdened. This geographic combination is the sole local breakdown available in the study.
Concerning the renters' race, about 175,000 renters in the area are Black, 134,000 White, 25,000 Hispanic/Latino, 18,000 Asian, and 18,000 multi-racial or another race. Some 52.1% of Blacks are renters, 21.1% of Whites, 45.8% of Hispanics/Latinos, 31.2% of Asians, and 50.1% multi-racial or another race.
Read the Harvard Joint Center study
Go to the Harvard report's summary page.
