Reports find US housing crisis worsening; gov't help needed
NEW YORK (AP) — Two studies released Wednesday found that the nation's housing availability and affordability crisis is expected to worsen significantly following the pandemic, likely widening the housing gap between Black, Latino and white households, as well as putting homeownership out of the reach of lower class Americans.
Both reports call for government action through traditional measures like down payment assistance and a massive increase in homebuilding to address the issue.
The reports by Harvard University and the National Association of Realtors come from different perspectives, but ultimately reach the same conclusion: the United States isn't building enough housing to address population growth, causing record low home availability, and rising home prices are putting homeownership out of reach of millions of Americans.
Without substantial changes in homebuilding and home affordability, both reports say, the result will be a more-or-less permanent class of renters contrasted with what will likely be a mostly white class of homeowners. While these problems were known before the coronavirus pandemic, the economic impact of the pandemic exacerbated the problem, the reports say.
“The unprecedented events of 2020 both exposed and amplified the impacts of unequal access to decent, affordable housing," researchers at Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University wrote. "These disparities are likely to persist even as the economy recovers, with many lower-income households slow to regain their financial footing and facing possible eviction or foreclosure.”
A separate study commissioned by the National Association of Realtors released Wednesday found that the U.S. housing market needs to build at least 5.5 million new units to keep up with demand and keeping home ownership affordable over the next 10...
