Rents today are well above what they were before the pandemic. According to a recent Gallup poll, Americans’ second-highest personal finance concern this election year is the cost of housing, behind only inflation. John Yang speaks with Diane Yentel, CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, about what’s keeping rents high.
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John Yang:
When the Gallup poll recently asked Americans to name their top personal finance concerns this election year, the cost of housing was second behind only inflation. More people cited it than at any time since Gallup started asking the question in 2005. And little wonder. Rents are well above what they were before the pandemic.
Earlier, I spoke with Diane Yentel, CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, and asked what's keeping rents high.
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Diane Yentel, CEO, National Low Income Housing Coalition:
Also, in some places, rents have cooled from those historic highs. They've leveled off or are even declining a bit in some communities. But the rents still remain well above those pre pandemic levels. Over half of all renters pay more than a third of their income towards rent. So rental costs are still quite out of reach for the average renter and especially for people with low or extremely low incomes.
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John Yang:
You say that in some places rents are cooling off, are dipping a little bit. Where is that and what's going on in those areas?
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Diane Yentel:
It's primarily because either demand is down or supply is up, or in some cases both. So in some places there are some of the higher income renters who have been able to move into the homeownership market. So there's a little bit less pressure and demand on the rental market in that community. In other places, they're building more, and those new multifamily units are starting to come online.
We are still well behind where we need to be in terms of building enough apartments to meet the demand in communities across the country. And that's why rents overall are stubbornly high. And it's important to note, even in those places where we are building more, the rents are coming down a little bit from those historic highs, but remain well out of reach for people with the lowest incomes.
And for those lowest income people, just building more apartments won't make housing affordable to them. Landlords can't build and operate apartments that are affordable to people with the lowest incomes on their own because the rent that those lowest income people can afford to pay doesn't cover the costs. So that's a basic market failure that requires a government intervention. And in this case, the form of the intervention needs to be subsidies, rental subsidies, to make those apartments affordable.
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John Yang:
In a number of states and in Congress, there's a push to limit the corporate ownership of rental units. Would that have an effect, do you think?
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Diane Yentel:
The research and the evidence has been very clear that by and large, corporate landlords are among the worst actors as landlords. Corporate landlords are more likely, according to the research, to be serial eviction filers as a profit making tactic.
They're more likely to have homes that are uninhabitable or unhealthy. So anywhere where we can limit the ability of corporate landlords to use those tactics or even to own those properties, the more we're able to create stability for those lowest income renters in those units.
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John Yang:
And also last year, when we talked, evictions had gone up again after the pandemic era protections came off. What's been the trend there with evictions?
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Diane Yentel:
During the pandemic, when policymakers acted in unprecedented ways, we were able to stave off what would have been a historic eviction wave. But just as those eviction protections expired and those resources were depleted, renters reentered this really brutal housing market where rents were skyrocketing and costs across the board had increased. Inflation was at a historic high.
So those lowest income renters were really being squeezed. And we saw, as a direct result, eviction filings rising and breaching and in many cases surpassing pre pandemic levels. And today we have historic levels of homelessness in communities across the country.
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John Yang:
You mentioned subsidies to help make low income housing affordable for those with low incomes. What else can be done? What else would you like to see done?
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Diane Yentel:
As long as, for example, we have higher income renters who aren't able to enter the homeownership market because of very little supply of homes for sale and high mortgage rates, that means they're staying in the rental market longer, and that's increasing costs for everyone. For people with the lowest incomes, we need increased subsidies. We need to increase rental assistance to repair and build more apartments that are affordable to people with the lowest incomes.
We need to make pandemic era programs that were tremendously successful, permanently authorized and permanently funded so that people can absorb a financial shock and stay housed. And we need to rebalance the power in our housing market that tilts heavily in favor of landlords at the expense of the lowest income renters through robust and enforced tenant protections.
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John Yang:
Diane Yentel of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, thank you very much.
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Diane Yentel:
Thanks so much.
