Rental Homes Becoming More Expensive
The country currently has 34 million renters. All these 34 million renters have continually experienced difficulties in keeping up with their high rents. Since the decade started, rental homes have increased in prices.
In fact, 50 percent of renters currently spend a minimum of 30 percent of their total income every month. Although this includes bills on utilities, it is still a very hefty price. This was according to an analysis that was conducted by the Associated Press. Worse, one every four renter spends more than half of their income to pay for their rental homes.
According to Sheila Crowley of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there would be more people who are living in rental homes to experience being homeless due to the inability to pay their rents. This is as prices of rents and utilities have continued to increase in the past years. Median rent increased by about 7 percent from 200 to 2007. This increase was so significant to renters, since income then also decreased by 7 percent.
Renters would find themselves spending too much on rent that it already affected how they lived. According to Cicely Dove, a director of family housing in Crossroads, renters would tend to sacrifice their needs such as important household items. Funds from the government to help renters have been in stagnant state since 2000. This was the time when rent started to rise, serving as useless. Also, the number of rental homes that are priced affordably has also been becoming fewer and fewer.
In the past years, around 3 million affordably-priced rental apartments were demolished to give way to condos or units that have higher prices. There had been a lot of missed laws and government funding that should have been helping renters.
Now, the economic recession has worsened the state of renters. After unemployment increased in the past months, renters received new burdens. Not only do they face the problem of paying for their rent, but also their landlords’ inability to pay home mortgage loans for their rental homes.
A lot of times, people instead choose to stay with their relatives and other people to lessen the rent that they have to pay. This raises concern about the quality of life in the country. In the future, a lot of people are hoping for better rates of rental homes, as well as more programs that would support tenants.
