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RURAL RENTAL HOUSING SUPPLY “If you don’t extend programs to rural areas, you’re putting a tough burden . . . on the poorest and most needy people.” The total stock of rural rental units has been growing slowly over the last decade and a half. Currently, there are 8.9 million occupied rental units in rural America, a 6.7 percent increase since 1985. This increase in the occupied rental housing stock has not been adequate to house the number of low-income rural residents in need of affordable rental housing, however. Although federal programs have increased the stock of subsidized rental units, development has not kept pace with the loss of unsubsidized units. Nationally the stock of affordable rental housing has been decreasing at an alarming rate. According to the 1999 State of the Nation’s Housing, the national stock of unsubsidized rental units affordable to very low-income renters decreased by almost 900,000 units (from just under 10.4 million to 9.5 million units) from 1993 to 1995. The number of rental units affordable at 30 percent of income to extremely low-income households fell nationally from 1.9 million units in 1991 to 1.5 million units in 1995. 9 The majority of rural rental units, 87 percent, are unsubsidized units. Thus, for rural households, the loss of these units has been particularly problematic. There is a huge disparity between the number of low-income rental households and the number of available affordable unsubsidized units, particularly for very low- and extremely low-income households. In 1995, there were only 34 affordable unsubsidized rental units for every 100 extremely low- and very low-income rural renter households (Figure 6).
The location of rural subsidized units has been somewhat concentrated, given local needs. Regionally, the South has the most federally subsidized rural rental units (35 percent) (Map 2). Despite the resources that have been allocated to this region, the South continues to have the highest number of worst case needs occurrences in the nation at 413,000 households. It is evident that the needs of this region far exceed the available resources.
The limited supply of affordable rental housing units contributes to the problem of crowded living conditions for many rural families. 10 Crowding is widespread in rural areas, with many families doubling and tripling up in order to reduce their rent burdens. One roundtable participant commented that in some parts of the Southeast it is common to find two or three families sharing an old, dilapidated mobile home or doubling up with family or friends. One California participant said that while many large families in rural towns are living in studios and one-bedroom apartments, it has been difficult to get city councils to look into the prevalence of crowding. Nationally, over 600,000 rural households live in crowded units. This is a greater concern for rural renters than rural homeowners. In 1991, 4 percent of rural renter households were crowded, whereas only 1 percent of rural homeowner households were. In 1995, crowding had dropped to 3.7 percent for rural renters and increased to 1.3 percent for rural homeowners.
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