Housing that is safe and affordable is fundamental to the health and economic wellbeing of residents. To increase housing affordability and access to dedicated affordable housing, the District is working quickly toward its bold goal to produce 36,000 homes by 2025 including the production and preservation of 12,000 dedicated affordable housing units.

This group of indicators includes housing cost-burden rates and tenure, which shows differences between households that rent their housing and those who own it.

Housing Burden

Housing is the largest expense for most households and - since shelter is such an important need - households typically pay for housing before other expenses. Nationally, housing is considered affordable if it costs 30% or less of total household income. Households that pay more than 30% of their income for housing are considered housing cost burdened and households that pay more than 50% of their income for housing are considered severely housing cost burdened.

Housing cost burdened households are at increased risk to financial shocks and stressors, such as job losses and medical bills. These households are less likely to be able to build enough savings to fully shield them from unplanned expenses or loss of income. In many cases, these households forgo some important needs, such as buying less food than is needed or not taking medicines.

Severely housing cost burdened households typically make very difficult tradeoffs on a regular basis. These households are very likely to experience food insecurity frequently, childcare may be unaffordable, and healthcare may be deferred. Households paying more than 50% of their income for housing are at high-risk of homelessness and are extremely vulnerable to unexpected expenses and income loss.

In the District, some households that are housing cost burdened are able to offset their higher housing costs with very low transportation costs by using the District’s robust transit network. For most households, housing costs that exceed 45% of household income cannot be offset by transit use. Additionally, owning and operating a motor vehicle has very high fixed costs and households that need one or more vehicles are more vulnerable to higher housing costs.

 

 

 

Households That Rent Their Housing Compared to Households That Own Their Housing

Tenure is the US Census Bureau’s technical term that describes the type of housing a household occupies. These data focus on rented and owned housing.

The type of housing a household occupies is an important factor in upward mobility from poverty: households that own and households that rent their housing both experience poverty and can also escape poverty, but their paths are often different.