HOUSING REMAINS "OUT OF REACH" IN MASSACHUSETTS AND ACROSS THE U.S.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition recently released the latest version of Out of Reach, an annual report on housing affordability for low-income people across the nation. The sobering document once again places Massachusetts among the top three most expensive states in the country for renters.

A recent report by the state's Department of Education estimates that more than 40,000 school-aged children are experiencing homelessness today. Combined with the estimated figures for preschool- aged children and adults, this number far exceeds 100,000 people experiencing homelessness each day here in Massachusetts.

This year's Out of Reach data show that a full-time worker in Massachusetts would have to earn $22.65/hour to be able to meet their basic needs while paying the state's average fair market rent of $1,178/month for a two-bedroom apartment. (This is 39% higher than the national average "housing wage" of $16.31/hour.) Unfortunately, there is a dearth of jobs that pay such a high wage, and a plethora jobs that pay closer to the minimum wage. A Massachusetts worker earning the state's 2006 minimum wage of $6.75/hour would have to work an astonishingly high 134 hours/week to single-handedly afford that rent, or combine their earnings with those of 2.4 other full-time minimum wage workers. In the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy Fair Market Rent Area, the situation is direr, with a minimum wage worker needing to be at the job 156 of each week's 168 hours.

"We will only fool ourselves, and betray those who are experiencing homelessness, if we do not recognize that guaranteeing access to permanent affordable housing will end this epidemic of homelessness," said Robyn Frost, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Coalition for The Homeless. "On the state level, this translates into maintaining and expanding the supply of state-funded public housing and housing subsidies through the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program. On the national level, this means a radical shift back to the time when providing affordable housing for the lowest income people was a real priority for the federal government and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Together, we must vigorously build both more affordable housing opportunities and the political will to eradicate homelessness."

To access Out of Reach 2006, go to http://www.nlihc.org/oor/oor2006/

The Western Regional Advocacy Project (WRAP) also has released an important new report, Without Housing: Decades of Federal Housing Cutbacks, Massive Homelessness and Policy Failures. This report correlates the dramatic increase in homelessness across the nation since the early 1980s with the equally dramatic decrease in federal support for affordable housing programs targeted to the lowest income people.

To access the WRAP report, go to http://wraphome.org/

- Adapted from: “Housing Remains ‘Out of Reach’ in Massachusetts and Across the U.S.”, Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, mchalert, December 18, 2006.

12/06