‘The math does not lie’: Why Austin only built 543 low-income homes while delivering 15,000 for the middle class

Mathew Davis, who lives in a homeless shelter in Austin, Texas, would love an apartment of his own. But with the little money he makes donating blood plasma, even a $450-a-month tiny home with no running water and a communal bathroom would be a stretch.

Meanwhile, over 4,500 units the city classifies as affordable — nearly 16% — sit empty.

“I don’t make enough money really to afford anything,” Davis, 49, said of the few hundred dollars he earns a month. “I just keep trying to swim uphill.”

The poorest people in the U.S. face the most acute shortages of affordable homes. But the majority of low-income housing financed in recent years is for those earning 50% of an area’s median income or above, according to a survey of state housing agencies.

Some cities are now seeing an uptick in vacancies as rents for these units approach market rates. The result: Apartments designated as affordable sit empty because the poorest of the poor cannot afford them.

Meanwhile, some people are forced into homelessness and others into desperate circumstances to pay for housing they can’t afford.

The poorest have few housing options

There are only about 4 million affordable rental units available for the country’s 11 million extremely low-income renter households, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s most recent annual report.

These are people with annual incomes either below the federal poverty guidelines — just under $16,000 for a single-person household — or 30% of the median income in their area, whichever is higher. They comprise about a quarter of U.S. renter households, and include many people working low-wage jobs, seniors and those with disabilities living on fixed incomes.

About three-quarters of extremely low-income renter households pay over half their income on rent and utilities, the report said, leaving little leftover for other necessities.

Yet homes set aside for these renters........

© Fortune