For Texas, where the number of cost-burdened renters and owners steadily increases, the market for affordable housing, particularly deeply affordable housing, continues to go unmet. According to the report, “in 2008, 1.3 million Texas households that rent were moderately or severely cost burdened. By 2018, that number rose to 1.7 million.” Yet, since the Great Recession, new housing construction has been to accommodate high-income residents. In addition to the dwindling supply of affordable housing units, factors contributing to this trend, as stated in the report, include high construction and labor costs, affordability constraints for residents, outside of housing costs, and pricing and financing constraints in the single-family market. With high population growth, internally and externally, expected in Texas over the next decade, the need for greater supply of housing, both in types of and in income variant units, is one of the primary challenges facing our society to support sustainable, family-friend communities.
To introduce this study, JCHS held a webcast to discuss the report and reflect on how the rental market has changed over the last decade. Watch here.