ST. LOUIS 鈥 More than three-quarters of 最新杏吧原创 and 最新杏吧原创 County鈥檚 poorest residents live in housing they can鈥檛 afford, according to a report released Monday that grades affordable housing in the region for the first time.
The report, funded by the faith-based nonprofit Deaconess Foundation, gives the city and county a C on affordable housing, as a whole. But some area residents fare far worse: The study gave Fs to housing options for families making less than half the region鈥檚 median income, for Black households and for renters.
Meanwhile, more than 80% of the region鈥檚 wealthiest residents and more than 80% of white homeowners live in housing the report deems affordable.
The report provides details critical for area housing efforts, said Glenn Burleigh, spokesman for the Metropolitan 最新杏吧原创 Equal Housing and Opportunity Council, and part of the grant-writing team for the project. 鈥淚t was always like, 鈥楬ow much of what do we need, and where?鈥欌 Burleigh said. 鈥淵ou could go to any agency, and ask, 鈥楬ow many units are we short?鈥 and nobody could tell you anything.鈥
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最新杏吧原创 and 最新杏吧原创 County have long struggled with affordable housing issues. The 最新杏吧原创 trust fund was just recently fully funded, after years of underpayments threatened its work. 最新杏吧原创 County just created its fund two years ago, with $50,000 from medical marijuana sales.
And the new report comes at a critical time: Even before the pandemic created an unstable housing market, rents were already rising and pricing out low-income people. And while developers are still building units, some are built for only the wealthiest of residents. Nationwide, rent is squeezing tenants鈥 budgets.
The study, the 最新杏吧原创 Affordable Housing Report Card, was the work of multiple area nonprofits, government bodies and contractors: Community Builders Network of Metro 最新杏吧原创 鈥 a group of governments, nonprofits and private developers, among others 鈥 commissioned the report for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Coalition, which advocates for the city and county trust funds. Deaconess Foundation paid for the $20,000 grant, spent largely on consultant URBNRX鈥檚 work to combine and analyze city and county data.
To calculate the grades, the researchers used census and federal housing data to tally the portion of area households that pay more than 30% of their income on rent, including utilities; or on their mortgages, including taxes, utilities and fees. URBNRX broke up the results by income and race; renters and homeowners.
The work showed that, as a whole, 71% of 最新杏吧原创 and 最新杏吧原创 County residents lived in housing they could afford. But only 22% of the poorest residents 鈥 those making less than 30% of the region鈥檚 median income 鈥 were in affordable housing. And just 32% of those in the next-poorest category 鈥 those making between 31% and 50% of the median 鈥 were.
While 79% of the areas鈥 homeowners lived in affordable housing 鈥 82% of whites and 72% of Blacks 鈥 only 56% of the renters did. Worse, while 61% of white renters paid rent they could afford, just 45% of Black renters did.
The implications hurt more than just those who are struggling with housing, said Burleigh. 鈥淚f families are constantly on the edge of homelessness 鈥 it鈥檚 bad for society in general,鈥 he said.
The report concludes by recommending more research on the regional funding of homelessness prevention, transitional housing and rent, mortgage and utility subsidies, plus the affordable housing needs of special populations such as seniors, people living with addiction or getting out of prison.
The entire report card can be found at .
