| RURAL RENTAL HOUSEHOLDS “This is all about people who have been left behind, left out.” 7 Rental units are an important part of the nation’s housing stock. For those households who cannot afford to purchase their own homes, renting can provide an affordable housing option. Rental housing also provides flexibility for those households with career, stage of life, or family size demands that homeownership simply does not provide. While 76 percent of rural households own their homes (Figure 1), there are a growing number of rural rental households. Currently, 8.9 million households (24 percent) in rural America rent their housing. This is an 8 percent increase in the total number of rural rental households since 1985. The demographic make-up of rural rental households differs greatly from those of rural homeowner households. The following sections illustrate the income, gender, race, and age differences that shape the rural renter population. Because of these characteristics, the needs of the renter population differ from other rural households, and from other households nationally. Worst Case Housing Needs Of the 8.9 million rural rental households, 1 million (11 percent) are worst case needs households. According to HUD, a household has worst case needs if it meets four major criteria:
While the majority of worst case households live in America’s cities, over 1 million live in rural areas. One in five worst case needs households lives in a rural area (Figure 2). This report presents data for worst case households, in addition to general rental housing data, as an indicator of housing conditions for those rural residents with the most extreme housing needs. These households suffer from a cross section of housing problems that typify many rural renters. However, these 1 million households lack federal housing assistance to alleviate housing burdens. The condition of worst case needs households is an important gauge of unmet rental housing need and indicates future demand for rural rental assistance and development.
 Income
Sixty-one percent of all rural renter households are low-income, whereas only 35 percent of all rural homeowner households are low-income. Renters account for 42 percent of all low-income rural households. By definition, all rural worst case households have very low incomes. Most of these households, however, are in even more dire economic straits. Of the more than one million rural renters with worst case needs, 70 percent are classified as extremely low-income, having incomes below 30 percent of the area median (Figure 3). Rural worst case households have a median income of only $6,000, which is almost five times lower than the national median income of $29,000.
In rural areas, 68 percent of all households are headed by married couples or men, with single women heading the remaining one-third households. However, among rural renters these gender characteristics are dramatically different. Female-headed households make up 46 percent of all rural rental households and 61 percent of worst case households (Figure 4). This is consistent with national trends in which female-headed households are the poorest of the poor and the worst housed. 8
Race and Ethnicity Given the racial make-up of rural America, most rural renters are white. However, African and Hispanic Americans are over represented among rural rental households (Table 1). Although African Americans head only 6 percent of all rural households, African Americans head 10 percent of rural rental households. Only 4 percent of all rural households are Hispanic. However, Hispanic Americans head 7 percent of rural rental households. Race and Ethnicity of Rural Renter Households
African and Hispanic Americans are also over represented among rural households with worst case needs. The overwhelming majority (88 percent) of all rural householders are white. However, they only make up 76 percent of worst case rural households. African Americans make up only 6 percent of all rural households, but 14 percent of worst case rural households (Figure 5). Similarly, only 4 percent of rural householders are Hispanic, yet Hispanic American headed households make up 8 percent of rural households with worst case needs.
Elderly Households The majority of rural renter households (65 percent) are headed by householders under the age of 44 (Table 2). However, elderly householders are over represented among worst case households. While householders over the age of 65 make up only 15 percent of rural renters, they account for 21 percent of the rural worst case households.
Table 2
Regional Distribution Nationwide approximately 5.3 million households (5 percent) experience worst case needs. Over 1 million (19.6 percent) of these worst case households live in rural areas. Among all U.S. households, worst case occurrences tend to be distributed relatively evenly among the four geographic regions. However, for rural renters, worst case need is somewhat concentrated in the South. A little over 400,000 (40 percent) of all rural worst case households are located in the South (Map 1). The Southern region includes such high need areas as the Mississippi Delta and the colonias. One quarter of rural worst case households are in the Midwest, followed by 21 percent in the West and 15 percent in the Northeast.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Female-Headed Households
