Why Thousands of Affordable Housing Units Sit Vacant While Millions Remain Unhoused
To millions of Americans making less than $16,000 a year, “affordable” housing should mean a safe place to live that allows them to afford groceries and basic daily expenses. Instead, the term has been redefined. Thousands of low-income units now sit vacant in cities like Austin, Denver, and Portland—unaffordable to the very people who need them the most, leaving the poorest of the poor unhoused.
There are 11 million extremely low-income households in the U.S. competing for about four million affordable units, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s most recent annual report.
And even those units built by the federal government are pricing out low-income individuals—especially those without housing vouchers because some affordable housing developers say it’s not economically feasible to rent to them, NBC News reported. Now, people are left to seek shelter elsewhere while units designed for them remain empty.
Some low-income people are opting to pay a bit more for market-rate apartments with less income verification and faster approval, leaving a growing number of affordable units completely vacant.
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Rebekah Fischer, chief portfolio officer for affordable housing developer LDG Development, revealed why low-income applicants face such a steep uphill battle. The qualification process, she explained, puts LDG in “direct competition” with market-rate apartments.
“I have to have every bank statement, every paycheck, every bill, every Venmo transaction that you had with your friends,” Fischer said of affordable housing applicants, as reported by the Associated Press. “When we’re almost going after the same renter, you can be approved within two minutes at a market-rate deal, where unfortunately in affordable housing, it takes time.”
In Portland, low-income housing rent is capped at $1,444 per month, according to the city’s website. However, the average market-rate rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the same city is $1,581, only a $137 difference—small enough for many low-income individuals to opt for alternatives.
“I’d rather spend the $200 extra just to get into a place easier that’s wherever I want and doesn’t have ‘all these hoops,’” said Portland resident Jaiden Barbee, who is currently on the affordable housing waitlist.
Over in Austin, Texas, real estate data and analytics firm CoStar found a 16% vacancy rate for its affordable housing, as NBC News reported. A healthy vacancy rate is around 5%. In Denver, the numbers are even more staggering with a 21% vacancy rate, according to the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority.
When it comes to mortgages, the Trump administration has been trying to focus on housing and other affordability issues for months, as White House economists estimate the United States has a shortage of 10 million houses, the Associated Press reported in April.
The math simply doesn’t add up for first-time buyers when the strategy for a housing shortage is keeping homes too expensive to buy.
Trump made it crystal clear he wants to keep housing prices high to protect values for existing owners, the AP reported. “I don’t want to drive housing prices down,” Trump told his Cabinet earlier this year. “I want to drive housing prices up for people that own their homes, and they can be assured that’s what’s going to happen.”
