A while back, I was sent some rather telling information by advocates of affordable housing.

So I thought, with fixed mortgage rates at historic lows and housing continuing to keep the economy from hitting bottom, that I’d take some time to share the information with you.

Although the national homeownership rate has risen dramatically over the past 50 years, and now stands at 68 percent, millions of America’s families have been left behind.

Who are these people and why are they having so much trouble?

Well, in excess of 14 million U.S. households are considered to have “critical housing needs.” What this means is that these people spend more than half of their income on housing or they live in substandard housing units.

Between 1997 and 2001, in fact, the number of households spending more than half of their income on housing has increased 67 percent, and probably has risen even more in the interim.

One in every seven renter households, which figures out to be about 5.3 million people in this country, has what are considered critical housing needs yet and receives no assistance in helping pay for it.

Out of this group, 22 percent are moderate-income working families, 21 percent are marginally employed, 27 percent are non-working elderly and 30 percent are unemployed.

Although the numbers have been increasing thanks to a huge number of initiatives since the early 1990s, the homeownership rate for African Americans and Hispanics is about 48 percent and 49 percent, respectively. These figures are about 20 percentage points below the national average.

By comparison, the homeownership rate for white, non-Hispanic households is 74 percent.

Although millions of working families are in desperate need of affordable housing that they can either purchase or rent, the number of rental units that qualify as suitable for low-income people is declining by almost a half-million per year.

The experts say that increasing the homeownership opportunities for minorities will be critical to the future of the housing market. Minority households, along with recent immigrants, will be a driving force in the for-sale housing market in the decade ahead.

The net inflow of immigrants who are arriving in the United States is more than 800,000 per year – lower than the 1990s but still a substantial number. Housing is a big key to the health of local economies. If you build 100 single-family homes, the economic benefits include:

Published: June 19, 2003

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