RURAL RENTAL HOUSING

"Minimum wage is not a housing wage . . . . You can’t get market housing for one or even two minimum wage earners. [There is] a substantial gap for a lot of Americans."

For many years, substandard housing has been the predominant rural housing problem. Although dilapidated housing remains a concern for many rural households, participants at each of the HAC-facilitated roundtables agreed that housing cost burden is a growing and very serious problem in rural America. ¹¹ Over three quarters (78 percent) of all rural worst case needs households report that severe housing cost burden is their only housing problem.

Rural residents are having increasing difficulty paying their housing costs, and roundtable participants all referred to the demand for affordable rental units in rural areas as reaching “crisis proportions.” One participant noted that over 63,000 rural residents in his Midwestern state pay more than half their income each month for housing. AHS data show that this statewide figure is comparable to national rates of rural housing cost burden. Overall, 22 percent of all rural households are cost burdened. However, cost burden affects a larger proportion of rural renter households than rural homeowner households, 33 percent and 18 percent, respectively.

One-third of all rural renters are cost burdened, despite the low rental and housing costs in rural America. The median contract rent for all U.S. renters is $440 per month compared to $300 for rural renters. While the median contract rent for rural worst case households ($315) is significantly lower than the overall U.S. median, it is actually higher than the overall rural median rent (Figure 7). Total housing costs follow a similar pattern. ¹² The median housing cost for rural renters is almost $100 less than the national median. However, the median housing cost for worst case rural renters is $42 higher than the rural renter median and only $71 less than the national median. ¹³

The high rate of housing cost burden among rural renters is directly related to their low incomes. The booming economy of the last few years has not closed the gap between income and housing costs for many rural Americans. Rural renters, particularly, have low incomes. The median income for rural renters is $18,000, compared to $28,000 for all rural households. Sixty-one percent of all rural renters are low-income, compared to 35 percent of all rural homeowners.

Incomes are so low among rural households, and rental households particularly, that many fall below the poverty line. ¹⁴ Poverty is prevalent among rural renters; 27 percent of all rural renters live in poverty, compared to 15.1 percent of all rural households (Table 3). While rural renters account for only 24 percent of the total households, they account for 42 percent of all rural households in poverty.

Rural Households with a Poverty Level Income	5,622,000 (15.1%)
Rural Rental Households with Poverty Level Income	2,411,000 (27%)
Rural Households Paying More than 30% of Income for Housing	8,167,000 (22%)
Rural Rental Households Paying more than 30% for Housing	1,969,000 (33%)

Housing cost burden is only one indicator of worst case needs. However, for rural worst case needs households, cost burden is particularly intense. Over 60 percent of these households are severely cost burdened, paying more than 70 percent of their income for housing costs. Less than 10 percent of rural worst case needs households are moderately cost burdened, paying from 31 to 50 percent of their income for housing (Figure 8).