America’s Affordable Housing Crisis Isn’t Just Hitting Cities
“America’s well-documented affordable housing crisis is often framed in terms of the big urban areas, where housing and living costs are sky high and rapid gentrification pushes rents and prices up and lower-income residents out. But the affordability crisis is also playing out across rural America. It’s more spread out and driven by different factors, but it’s no less devastating. A new report, published Tuesday, highlights the problem by ranking the affordable housing needs of rural communities across the country. Produced by the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C., think thank, the report identifies 152 rural counties ― home to 8 million people ― with the most-severe needs for affordable rental housing.”