SC Affordable Housing Need

Across South Carolina, there is a shortage of rental homes affordable and available to extremely low-income households (ELI), whose incomes are at or below the poverty guideline or 30% of their area median income (AMI). Many of these households are severely cost-burdened, spending more than half of their income on housing. Severely cost-burdened poor households are more likely than other renters to sacrifice other necessities like healthy food and healthcare to pay the rent and to experience unstable housing situations like evictions.

What problems does a lack of affordable housing cause?

Research shows that the shortage of affordable housing costs the American economy about $2 trillion a year in lower wages and productivity. Without affordable housing, families have constrained opportunities to increase earnings, causing slower GDP growth.

How the housing crisis hits those over 60. Already faced with shortages, Greenville housing providers see enormous challenges ahead when it comes to affordable senior housing. More than 50,000 Greenville County residents were 65 or older in 2018; the population will swell to 73,141 by 2029, according to an affordable housing strategic plan published in October by the Greenville Housing Fund and the Greenville County Redevelopment Authority. The housing affordability crisis, driven in part by the covid-19 pandemic, is part of the problem. But high inflation is also chipping away at older adults’ fixed incomes.

For more information on South Carolina’s affordable housing crisis check out SC Housing 2021 Affordable Housing Need Assessment. https://www.schomeless.org/media/1183/sc-needs-assessment-report.pdf