Thank you, Pam Fessler

On my drive into work this morning, I was listening to my regular NPR member station, WAMC, just like I do every morning. I listened to a story reported by Pam Fessler on Morning Edition about how housing costs are affecting low income families.

NPR reporter Pam Fessler has created a series on low-income housing and how it affects people. I have listened to all parts of the series thus far available and the information and the stories are absolutely astonishing.

For example, did you know that at least 11 million families in our country pay more than fifty percent of their income for rent? Even worse, a large portion of these families pay as much as eighty percent! EIGHTY PERCENT! So if your gross monthly income is $2,400, then you would be paying $1,920 toward housing!

In Washington, D.C. there were, at one time, over 70,000 people on a waiting list for rent vouchers and/or public housing. There were so many people on the waiting list that the city had to shut the list down! Incidentally, the vast majority of people found in "rental court" are usually African-American. This in a city where less than half of the population is black. This is an indicator of a severely under-served and under-represented population when it comes to affordable housing.

Or, how about this...one in four people who qualify for rental vouchers or public housing actually receive it, leaving seventy-five percent of qualified families struggling to keep a roof over their heads.

When families have unstable housing and are left with no choice but to keep moving from place to place, the implications can be devastating. Many times, families wind up living in high crime areas in worse housing conditions, children have to change schools are not able to attend school for long stretches of time, and mental and physical health are many times adversely affected, too.

Chew on this while listening to the reports found at:

http://www.npr.org/series/471013702/staving-off-eviction