The housing crisis is a national issue, but it hits close to home in some particularly challenging ways. The result: there is just not enough affordable housing for those who need it, and it’s a problem that’s been building for years.
In Rhode Island, the number of housing starts fell from the late ’80s until it was last in the nation, on a per capita basis, in 2021. A recent study done for the Rhode Island Foundation found that a third of households are cost-burdened, meaning they pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing.
In Massachusetts, it’s a similar story. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates a shortfall of more than 175,000 affordable rental units for extremely low income residents.
We’ll be following this story as it develops over 2023, exploring efforts in the political arena and the private sector to address the housing shortage and reporting on the realities of the situation for those who simply can’t find a place to live.
