We need more than seven million new affordable homes. That’s no typo.
Each year, the National Low Income Housing Coalition releases “The Gap,” a report highlighting the massively inadequate supply of affordable homes available to renters at low and extremely low incomes. Last week, NLIHC released the 2019 edition, and it’s clear that housing advocates still have lots of work to do.
Nationwide, there’s a shortage of 7.2 million affordable homes for extremely low income households. That’s almost one home for every person in Virginia.
NLIHC publishes data for “The Gap” by state and metro areas, too. Across Virginia, there are only 62 available and affordable homes for every 100 renter households earning less than 50% AMI. That pencils out to a shortage of more than 148,000 affordable homes. That includes 22,870 in the Richmond region, 37,480 in Hampton Roads, and 149,000 in the DC metro area.
Click the links above to read the entire report and explore more data.
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