The Affordable Housing Crisis

In the first five modules, we have changed the way we look at poverty. We began by measuring our own financial place in the world and considering our responsibility to help. We challenged the stereotypes we carry about people in poverty, then explored Dr. Ruby Payne’s eight resources—only one of which is financial. We examined government assistance and the Benefits Cliff, learning that public help is necessary but cannot replace strong local support. And in Module 5, we saw how easily good intentions can be lost when communication breaks down – which it does more often than we think. Now we turn to one of the most concrete barriers to stability: affordable housing.

Let me begin with a simple question.

What would happen in your life if more than half of every paycheck went to rent and utilities before you bought groceries, filled the car with gas, paid for medicine, or took care of your children?

For millions of people, that is not a hypothetical. It is normal life.

When we talk about poverty, we often talk about income. We talk about work, education, addiction, trauma (ACEs), government benefits or The System as we referred to it in Module 4, and the choices people make. All of those things matter. But there is one issue that sits underneath almost every other conversation: housing.

A safe place to live is not a luxury. It is the foundation beneath everything else. It is where children sleep before school. It is where a worker rests before a shift. It is where medication is stored, meals are prepared, mail is received, and a family tries to recover from a hard day.

When that foundation becomes unstable, every other resource becomes harder to hold onto.

That is why we are talking about the affordable housing crisis.

What “Affordable” Actually Means

The word affordable is used so often that it can lose its meaning.

In housing, the widely used standard is simple: a home is considered affordable when it costs no more than 30 percent of a household’s income, including utilities. When housing costs more than that, a family is considered cost burdened. When it consumes more than half of income, a family is considered severely cost burdened.

That may sound technical. But think about what it means in real life.

If rent takes half of your income, the remaining half has to cover food, transportation, childcare, insurance, medicine, clothing, school supplies, phone service, emergencies, and every unexpected expense that comes with being alive.

There is no margin. And when there is no margin, one flat tire, one sick child, one cut in work hours, or one medical bill can become a crisis.

The Scale of the Crisis

This is not a small problem affecting only a few people who made poor decisions.

Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies reports that in 2023, 22.6 million renter households—half of all renter households in America—were paying more than 30 percent of their income for housing. More than 12.1 million households were paying more than half of their income for housing.

That is not just a poverty statistic. That is a stability statistic.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that the country is short more than 7 million rental homes that are both affordable and available to people with extremely low incomes. Nationally, there are only 35 affordable homes for every 100 extremely low-income renter households that need one.

So when someone says, “Why don’t they just find a cheaper place?” we need to understand the problem. In many communities, there is no cheaper place available. The homes do not exist in sufficient numbers.

And here in Florida, the pressure is especially severe. The National Low Income Housing Coalition reports only 26 affordable and available homes for every 100 extremely low-income renter households. It estimates that 82 percent of those households are severely cost burdened.

That means the problem is not simply that someone needs to budget better. The math does not work.

Work Does Not Always Solve the Housing Problem

We tell people, “Get a job. Work harder. Get more hours.” Work absolutely matters. Dignity matters. Responsibility matters.

But like the module on the benefits cliff taught us, work does not automatically solve an affordability gap when wages and rents are moving in different directions.

In 2026, the National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that a full-time worker in Florida needs to earn about $38 an hour to afford a modest two-bedroom rental home at fair-market rent without spending more than 30 percent of income on housing.

At Florida’s minimum wage, that would require roughly 108 hours of work - each week.

That is not a work ethic problem. That is an arithmetic problem.

A parent working full time in food service, retail, home health, hospitality, childcare, or any number of jobs that keep our community going can still be unable to afford a modest apartment. This is why the affordable housing crisis is not only about people who are unemployed. It reaches people who work, people who serve us, people who care for our children, and people who care for our parents.

Why Are There Not Enough Affordable Homes?

This is where the issue becomes more complicated.

We can build apartments and still fail to create housing that low-income families can afford. Harvard’s 2025 housing report found that while new multifamily construction was high in 2024, much of it was at the upper end of the market.

At the same time, the number of lower-rent units continued to fall.

In other words, more buildings do not automatically mean more affordable homes.

Land is expensive. Construction is expensive. Insurance, taxes, financing, maintenance, and labor are expensive.

And local rules, put into place to protect the safety or neighborhood quality can make it extremely difficult for builders who want to help. Zoning may allow only single-family homes on quarter acre lots where apartments or smaller homes are needed, for the sake of the those in need of a home. Large-lot requirements, low-density limits, parking mandates, height restrictions, expensive fees, and long approval processes can add so much cost and delay that an affordable project no longer works financially. Each rule may make sense on its own, especially when it protects safety or neighborhood quality. But when they all stack together, builders either walk away, build only for higher-income renters, or charge rents that working families cannot afford. Good building codes protect people; outdated or overly restrictive rules can keep affordable housing from ever being built.

For a developer, it is often easier to make a project work financially by building for people with higher incomes. That is not automatically evil. It is the incentive structure we have created.

But it leaves a gap at the bottom of the market. The people with the least money are competing for the fewest homes. And when demand overwhelms supply, rents rise, waiting lists grow, families double up, people move farther from work and school, and some eventually lose housing altogether.

The Cascade

But housing instability is not just homelessness.

It can mean struggling to pay rent. It can mean moving every few months. It can mean living with family because there is nowhere else to go. It can mean overcrowding. It can mean staying in an unsafe relationship because leaving would mean having no place to sleep. It can mean choosing between rent and medicine, rent and food, rent and the electric bill.

This is why housing is so connected to every resource we have discussed.

A stable home supports physical health. It supports emotional health. It supports children’s education. It supports employment because it gives people an address, a routine, a place to sleep, a place to shower, and a way to get to work consistently.

When people move frequently, children may change schools, lose friendships, and fall behind academically. Parents may miss work, lose transportation, or spend every available hour searching for the next place to live. An eviction can also leave a record that makes it harder to rent again.

This is not about excusing every decision a person makes. It is about recognizing how quickly instability can multiply.

Housing insecurity is a form of noise in a person’s whole life. It makes it harder to hear good advice, harder to keep appointments, harder to plan ahead, and harder to take advantage of opportunities that might otherwise help.

What Actually Helps?

So what do we do?

First, we stop pretending there is one easy answer. There is no single program, church, nonprofit, developer, or government agency that can solve this alone.

We need more homes affordable to people with low incomes. We need to preserve older affordable homes instead of allowing them to disappear. We need rental assistance and housing vouchers that actually reach people. We need eviction prevention before a family loses its home. We need landlords, employers, service providers, churches, nonprofits, and local governments willing to work together.

We also need to understand that housing without support is not always enough. Some people need help navigating a lease, reconnecting with family, addressing trauma, managing health care, getting transportation, finding work, or staying connected to a community that cares.

But let us be clear: support services are not a substitute for a home. A person cannot stabilize every other part of life while sleeping in a car, moving from couch to couch, or wondering whether there will be an eviction notice on the door tomorrow.

Government has a necessary role. It can finance housing, provide vouchers, protect tenants, and help close the gap the market does not close on its own. Nonprofits and churches have a necessary role. They can provide relationships, emergency help, mentoring, advocacy, practical support, and the kind of personal care that large systems often struggle to provide.

This is not government versus community. It is not charity versus policy. It is both.

Closing

Affordable housing is not the only issue in poverty. But when a safe place to live is out of reach, every other resource becomes harder to hold onto.

That is why this crisis matters. And that is why understanding it is the first step toward becoming part of the solution.

Transition to Module 7

The next question is whether the churches, ministries, nonprofits, civic leaders, and funders trying to help are working together well enough to move a family forward. Too often, they are working alongside one another, but not with one another—and the people in need carry the cost of that separation. In Module 7: The Church, Parachurch, and Shared Responsibility, we will examine the distinct role each can play and why good intentions must become a coordinated response.