Insights into Housing Affordability for Rural Low-Income Families

Abstract

Many nonprofits and government entities model the standard for housing affordability set by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD, which states that housing costs in excess of 30% of gross household income are unaffordable. Families require a minimum level of basic consumption after housing costs are made which must then be purchased with the remaining 70% of their gross income. Hence, an increasing number of studies have examined how these competing needs factor into the government equation for housing affordability using national datasets. This study uses data from the Rural Families Speak project, a multi-state research project focused on rural, low-income families with children. The percent of income families spent on housing is compared to their ability to fulfill basic needs to answer the question: Do low-income rural families that are not housing cost burdened perceive themselves to be able to meet more basic needs than families that are housing cost burdened according to the government standard? By incorporating measures of perceived fulfillment of basic needs, the understanding of affordability can be broadened to include the challenging circumstances of rural areas.