Who needs Affordable Housing


1. Who needs /lives in affordable housing?
Anyone who is affected by the high costs of housing in our region. In many cases, people who need affordable housing are often already members of the community. They are senior citizens living on fixed incomes and families working entry-level and low-wage jobs. They are preschool teachers, travel agents, and medical assistants. Also, affordable housing developments have very stringent admission and eligibility standards; credit history, prior rental history, and criminal records are routinely checked.

 
According to the US. Department of Housing and Urban Development, your housing is "affordable" if you do not pay more than 30% of your monthly household income for rent and utilities. In the case of home ownership, affordability varies depending upon details such as: household income, prevailing interest rates, amount of down payment, and the type of mortgage selected. The largest subsidy for housing in the United States is the federal income tax deduction for mortgage, which totaled $58.3 billion in 1995 (latest year for which figures are available). This was almost three times the entire budget for the Department of Housing and Urban Development that year. Homeowner deductions for local property taxes totaled another $14.2 billion in 1995. Wealthy Americans are chief beneficiaries of these tax deductions. The 1.2 percent of tax payers with incomes over $200,000 received $12.6 billion in mortgage interest deductions in 1995 - 21.6 percent of the total. The 5.6 percent of tax payers with incomes over $100,000 claimed 49.7 percent of the total. In other words, the largest housing subsidy benefits the rich.

The conventional housing market does not supply enough affordable housing because high land prices and other costs make it not sufficiently profitable. Everyone is concerned about their families, wants and deserves to make a home living in clean, safe neighborhoods.