A18 From Page One housing from A1
sands of residents who fall into both categories. But the region’s unusually high number of high- income earners skews the statis- tics, bringing the median near the national norm despite the struggles of so many housing- burdened residents. “The cost of housing in Fairfax
County is outrageous,” said Lia Spriggs, 49, a kitchenmanager at a Springfield elementary school. With an income of $29,000,
the divorced mother of two was on the verge of being evicted from a $1,400-a-month apart- ment when a vacancy arose in a county-owned townhouse in Centreville. Her rent is keyed to her income, so she pays $776 for a three-bedroom townhouse she has furnished with donations fromfriends. Her take-home pay still is stretched to the limit. “I have to be incredibly smart
shopping,” she said, “or we wouldn’t have enough to eat.” The shortage of affordable
housing has grown more acute during the economic downturn, particularly for a rising number of renters paying over the thresh- old. “It’s the impact foreclosures
have had on the rental market,” said Mary Schwartz, a Census Bureau demographer who spe- cializes in analyzing housing sta- tistics. “They’re going frombeing homeowners to renters, and that can put pressure on rents.” Census figures show that two
of three residents in the region are homeowners, the vastmajor- ity of them with mortgages. A third are renters who pay a median rent of $1,300monthly.
Moving in together Rick Nelson, head of the De-
partment of Housing and Com- munity Affairs in Montgomery County, said he has noticed a rise in families doubling and even tripling up in rental housing over the past two years because they can’t afford their own places. “The problem extends all the
way up to thosewho areworking families, the average Joes,” he said. “In Montgomery County, our median income is $103,000. You’ve got families who are at 60 or 70 percent of the median, and they can’t afford the rents. Sure,
MICHAEL S. WILLIAMSON/THE WASHINGTON POST
Asign advertises a foreclosure sale in FortMyers, Fla. Six of the 10 highest-incomeU.S. counties are in suburbanWashington, a region whose overall wealth has kept its housing picture from worsening.
“Families who are at 60 or 70 percent of the median income can’t afford the rents. Sure, $60,000 is a lot in Dubuque. But not here.”
—Rick Nelson, Montgomery County’s head of Department of Housing and Community Affairs
$60,000 [in household income] is a lot in Dubuque. But not here.” Six of the 10 highest-income
counties in the nation are in suburban Washington, and the region’s wealth has kept its over- all housing picture from becom- ing worse. The widespread affluence also
has kept Washington looking flush in comparison to other urban communities, many of which have a greater share of residents stretching to pay their housing bills. The percentage of Washington area homeowners who are severely burdened is the
lowest of the 50 largest metro- politan areas in the nation. Look- ing at renters, the region is in the middle, ranking 25th. But housing experts are not
overly worried about well-off people, such as the 52,000Wash- ington area homeowners with six-figure incomes who face a moderate burden on houses lad- en with amenities. “For them, the 30 percent ratio
is not an indicator of a true housing affordability problem, but rather a lifestyle choice,” Schwartz said of the house-poor high earners in a research paper on the phenomenon three years
ago. Despite the fall in housing
prices, the median percent of income owners spend on hous- ing remained fairly constant be- tween 2007 and 2009, both na- tionally and regionally. But it has inched up for renters. In the Washington area, a
staggering number of lower-in- come renters are burdened by housing costs. In virtually every county, close to 90 percent of renters earning $25,000 to $35,000 are at least moderately burdened — well above the na- tional level of 63 percent. Even among households with
incomes ranging from $35,000 to $50,000, two-thirds of home- owners in many places, includ- ing Prince William, Loudoun, Fairfax, Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, are bur- dened by housing costs—almost double the national rate. As their incomes rise, renters
pay amuch smaller share of their income on housing. Above the $75,000 income level, only 4 percent of renters nationwide are burdened — but it’s twice that rate in Montgomery and Fairfax and in the District. Rochelle King, a regulatory
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affairs associate for a biotech firm, pays more than 35 percent of her salary to rent a townhouse in Germantown owned by the Housing Opportunities Commis- sion of Montgomery County. In addition to her $1,168 rent, she shells out an additional $500 a month for utilities, including gas and water. She knows many others who share her plight. “People are having to take two
jobs just to keep a roof over their
heads.And try to keep food in the
EZ RE
KLMNO
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2010 Area housing costs eat up burdensome share of income
Te heavy load of housing Compared with the nation, a high proportion of local renters and homeowners spend an amount toward housing that exceeds 30 percent of their income, the standard threshold deemed prudent to pay for shelter and its associated costs.
Percentage of each income level that paid 30 percent or more of earnings on housing in 2009
Renters
THE DISTRICT MARYLAND
Howard Montgomery
Prince George’s VIRGINIA
Fairfax Loudoun
Prince William UNITED STATES
Owners
THE DISTRICT MARYLAND
Howard Montgomery
Prince George’s VIRGINIA
Fairfax Loudoun
Prince William UNITED STATES
69% 61
76 77 77
46 77 73 78
48 SOURCE: U.S. Census American Community Survey, 2009
house. And pay the utilities,” said King, 45, who depleted her sav- ings in the year after shewas laid off before she found a new job. “It’s hard. It is really hard.”
Low-cost housing scarce During the housing boom,
many rental units in the District were converted to condomini- ums, said Jenny Reed, an analyst with the D.C. Fiscal Policy Insti- tute. As a result, she said, the stock of low-cost rental apart- ments has shrunk bymore than a third over the past decade, plac- ing the District among the top five cities that experienced the fastest rising rents. Mayor-elect Vincent C. Gray
said recently that creating more affordable housing is crucial to the District’s growth. Hundreds of renters on the
verge of eviction make their way every year to Housing Counsel- ing Services, one of four nonprof- it groups that administer the city’s emergency rental assis- tance program. Renters who can provide proof that their land- lords are about to toss them out can get up to $4,250 to pay back rent. The alternative, said Depu- ty Director Theresa Hill, is more homelessness. “There’s always more demand
than there ismoney to hand out,” she said. “It seems like it’s dou-
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NOVEMBER 29
57% 52
49 63 68
42 65 65 71
39
53% 46
52 55 62
34 58 71
63 28
47% 44
58 57 69
35 53 85 60
28 THE WASHINGTON POST
bled in the last couple of years.” Every organization offering
help with affordable housing in the region is swamped. In Fairfax, where two out of
three renters are housing bur- dened, the waiting list for public housing has been closed since mid-2009. The county estimates that it could use almost 80,000 more apartments and houses to meet the demand for affordable housing. At the Housing Opportunities
Commission of Montgomery County, a waiting list for about 500 housing vouchers that be- come available in a given year has 15,000 names. The list has been closed for almost two years. Most of the applicants have household incomes of $40,000 to $50,000, said Tedi Osias, an official with the commission. More middle-class residents
are seeking help for the first time than ever before. “Sometimes they show up
with nothing more than their cars,” she said. “They’ve lost their jobs, and the dominoes begin to fall. Then they lose their homes. The Washington area, and Maryland in particu- lar, have fared pretty well in the recession, but there’s still a great deal of need.”
morelloc@washpost.com keatingd@washpost.com
$20,000 to $34,999
72% 79
89 86 87
68 88 91 87
63
$35,000 to $49,999
48% 56
78 76 55
40 82 89 66
33
$50,000 to $74,999
27% 25
28 39 27
23 52 37 43
15
$75,000 and up
8% 6
4 8 6
6 8 5 6
4
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