COVID-19 Increasing Affordability Challenges for Low Income Individuals per Harvard University Study

According to a study released by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, COVID-19 is having an especially pronounced impact on the affordability of housing among low-income individuals. The recently released American Community Survey reveals an ongoing downshift in cost burdens in 2019. However, while the share of all cost-burdened homeowner, which are those spending more than 30% of their income for housing fell significantly in the decade preceding COVID-19, the cost burdens for low-income homeowners fell only slightly. A particular concern induced by these longer-term trends: since the onset of the pandemic, it is considerably more likely for low-income households to have lost jobs or had their work curtailed.