from the Center for Housing Policy [info@nhc.org], 4/5/12

Over-65 population expected to grow by more than 120 percent by 2050; new report finds older population boom will worsen the nation’s housing affordability challenges

That baby boomers are swelling the ranks of older Americans is well-documented, but do we really understand the consequences of this important shift for the housing needs of older adults? A new report from the Center for Housing Policy, Housing an Aging Population: Are We Prepared?, explores the effects of this coming demographic change on the demand for housing, the challenge of providing meaningful housing choices for older adults of all incomes, and the policies that could help communities across the country respond to the dual challenges of providing older adults with affordable housing and adequate services.

The U.S. 65-and-older population will more than double by 2050 to nearly 90 million, growing at a rate far faster than any other age group. According to Census data, by 2050, one in five Americans will be over the age of 65. Some estimates put the figure even higher.

Housing an Aging Population: Are We Prepared? finds that older adults are more likely than younger adults to have housing affordability challenges.  As a result, the aging of the population is likely to increase the overall proportion of the country with severe housing cost burdens.  The report also finds that many older adults lack access to affordable services that could help them age in place.  Similarly, older adults with low- and moderate incomes often lack access to meaningful housing choices – for example, to move into a multifamily development that would provide services an 85-year-old might need to continue living independently and avoid costly nursing care.  The report further covers trends affecting older adults in terms of demand, housing costs, finances, location and housing type, offering recommendations on existing policies that may help to address the coming crisis.

Sydelle M. Knepper, founder and CEO of the New York-based development firm SKA Marin, says it’s not just government and nonprofits that are working to meet the housing needs of older adults. In more than 30 years working in housing policy at the federal, state and local levels and now in the private sector, Knepper says that she’s never seen a greater challenge, or such a great opportunity.

“Given the sharp increase in the population of older adults cited in the report, it’s essential that we focus now on strengthening the nation’s policy response.  HUD’s Section 202 supportive housing for the elderly program has done a lot to fund housing for older adults and people with a disability, providing more than 400,000 homes over the last 50 years, but we need to act at a much larger scale to have a hope of meeting future need.”

Advocacy groups for older adults have also begun tackling this looming issue, in large part working to spread awareness and to offer solutions that build on the existing policy framework.  Rodney Harrell, a policy advisor at AARP’s Public Policy Institute, says that communities and states must understand the challenges before they can address them.

“As the older population grows, meeting the housing needs of older adults is certain to become a significant challenge across the nation. States and communities need to effectively respond by adopting policies that ensure adequate, affordable housing for people of all ages.”

Read Housing an Aging Population: Are We Prepared?

Key Findings

• As the U.S. population ages, the share of the population with severe housing cost burdens will likely rise. Older adults are more likely than younger adults to spend more than half their income on housing. Cost burdens also increase with age. One in four households 85+ spend at least half their income on housing, as compared with about one in five households aged 65-74 and about one in six households younger than 65.
• As the overall population ages, the numbers of the most vulnerable will grow as well – people with a disability, women living alone (who account for 40 percent of 65+ women) and minorities. Meanwhile, the Great Recession has eaten into the reserves of many older households, reducing home equity and retirement accounts.
• Even some older homeowners without mortgages face serious housing challenges.  While 65+ homeowners are more likely than younger households to have paid off their mortgages, many of these homeowners nevertheless have high housing cost burdens. The incomes of older adults tend to decline with age-as reflected in rising poverty rates. But property taxes, maintenance, and utility costs all tend to rise over time for both older homeowners and renters (as reflected in higher rents). Accumulated savings can help, but these too diminish with age.
• An older population with health issues will drive demand for modified housing and housing with supportive services. Both men and women are living longer, and as a result, more older adults will be living with disabilities. About one quarter of older households aged 65-74 and nearly two thirds of households with a member 85+ include someone with a disability. The demand for renovations and retrofits to accommodate disabilities and for moves to housing with supportive services will likely rise. Currently, about one in five 85+ adults are in community housing or a long-term care facility-more than 10 times the share of adults aged 65 to 74. The supply of these types of housing is unlikely to keep pace with burgeoning demand. Many suburban communities, home to half of older adults, continue to limit multifamily or group housing.
• Existing and emerging policies can help older adults continue to live in their own homes as they age. These include policies to: assist with home modification using deferred loans or grants from Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), HOME or housing trust funds; connect residents to social services through expansion of the Home and Community-Based Services Medicaid waiver program, volunteer efforts, and other mechanisms; help residents afford high housing costs through housing vouchers and property tax abatement programs; and expand public transit and volunteer driver programs to help residents get around without driving.
• Equally important are policies to expand housing choices for older adults. By adopting more flexible zoning policies, communities can help foster a diverse range of housing types including accessory dwelling units (i.e., granny flats), high-density rental developments, assisted living residences, continuing care retirement communities, and congregate housing. Subsidies will be needed to help ensure that older adults with low and moderate incomes have access to affordable choices. The report also recommends experimenting with more cohousing efforts that promote “active neighboring” and/or allow professional caregivers to live among residents.

Methodology -   This report is based primarily on Center for Housing Policy tabulations of American Housing Survey (AHS) data from 2009.  The tabulations use age of oldest member (not age of householder) to classify households into age groups; a 65+ household is one in which the age of the oldest household member is 65 or older. To complement the AHS and provide a more complete picture of the housing challenges faced by older adults, additional data and analyses were used, including analyses by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Division as well as data from the 2000 and 2010 Census, Current Population Survey from 2011, and Consumer Expenditure Survey from 2009.  Complete sources can be found in the report’s technical appendix.

Learn more about the National Housing Conference and its research affiliate the Center for Housing Policy.

from Enterprise Capitol Express Newsletter, 4/4/12, “Initial Analysis Reveals that 74 Percent of States Will Use their National Mortgage Settlement Funds for Housing”

On March 13, materials from the $25 billion National Mortgage Settlement were made public, outlining how states will use the combined $2.5 billion in direct payments. The majority of states plan to use funds to address housing issues and some explicitly mention supporting affordable housing programs. Read More about the National Mortgage Settlement

by Public News Service – Oregon, February 23, 2012

An estimated 42,000 children in Oregon are living in areas where at least 30 percent of their neighbors are poor, which affects them negatively in a variety of ways, according to a report released today.

The number of Oregon children growing up in areas of concentrated poverty has tripled since 2000, according to the KIDS COUNT “Data Snapshot” report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

Even being one of the more stable families in an impoverished neighborhood still holds a family back, says Laura Speer, the Casey Foundation’s associate director for policy reform.

“It really gets at this double-jeopardy in terms of these children who are living in high-poverty communities that there actually is an effect that the communities have, regardless of their own family’s income.”

Children living in areas of concentrated poverty have harmful stress levels, the report says, and are more likely to have behavioral and emotional problems and trouble in school.

Stacy Michaelson, a Children First for Oregon policy associate, says it’s all part of a much bigger problem – with 374,000 children in Oregon who are living in low-income households, a number which has been creeping up for a decade and isn’t confined to high-poverty areas.

“We’re a small state; that’s a large portion of folks. Things are green and pretty in the Northwest, but that doesn’t mean our kids aren’t experiencing poverty. I think because it’s not visualized in the same way as it is in a lot of other areas, it’s sort of easy to not realize the magnitude of the problem.”

Michaelson, who has been sitting in on this week’s budget discussions at the Legislature, says she hoped for more dialogue about how and when to deploy social services, not just whether to fund or cut them. She calls it a “return on investment conversation.”

“Where we really look at, at what point we begin investing dollars in a family – and are we waiting until a family gets to a point where they’re in a really dire position? Or are we prioritizing programs that prevent families from getting to that level of poverty in the first place?”

Children First for Oregon advocates maintaining funding for programs such as Employment-Related Day Care, which helps lower-income families pay for child care so parents can hold jobs. The Casey Foundation report says three out of four children living in poverty have at least one parent in the full-time workforce.

The full report is online at AECF.org.

from National Low Income Housing Coalition Monthly Newsletter – March 13, 2012

NLIHC Will Release Out of Reach: America’s Forgotten Housing Crisis Today. This annual research report is the source of the “housing wage” — the hourly wage that an individual must earn to afford a modest rental home. It highlights this data for every state, metropolitan area and county in the country and provides additional data around housing affordability such as local wages and housing costs. Click here for the report- http://nlihc.org/oor/2012

While rents have been rising, wages have stagnated, making affordable housing an increasingly scarce commodity. The National Low Income Housing Coalition, an advocacy group, calculated how many hours of work at the minimum wage would be required to afford a two-bedroom unit at Fair Market Rent—the government’s measure for the monthly cost of a “modest, non luxury rental unit” in a specific area, plus utilities. In no state was a 40-hour work week enough.
(SOURCE: NATIONAL LOW-INCOME HOUSING COALITION) Nationally, the NLIHC calculates that a household needs to earn $37,960 in 2012 to afford a two-bedroom unit at the national average Fair Market Rate of $949 a month. By comparison, someone earning the current federal minimum wage, working 40 hours a week, earns only $15,080 a year.

Meanwhile, low-income housing units have become increasingly scarce. The group points out in its report that the number of housing rental units for $500 a month or less fell by one million between 2007 and 2010, according to the Census Bureau. Federal funding for affordable housing has also been slashed. The NLIHC notes that in 2012, funding for the Public Housing Capital Funding was cut by 8 percent, and a separate funding program for states and local governments to create low-income housing was cut by 38 percent.

In 2010, there were 9.8 million extremely low income renter households in the United States, and only 3 million rental homes affordable and available to these households. This shortage of 6.8 million rental units means that only 30 rental homes are affordable and available for every 100 extremely low income renters.

These are among the findings in the new issue of Housing Spotlight: The Shrinking Supply of Affordable Housing. This National Low Income Housing Coalition research brief uses new data from the 2010 American Community Survey (ACS) Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) to compare the number of low income, very low income, and extremely low income renter households in each state with the number of rental homes that renters below each income threshold can afford. The analysis also takes into account availability; that is, whether a rental unit is occupied by a higher income household.

Housing Spotlight: The Shrinking Supply of Affordable Housing is available at: http://nlihc.org/doc/HousingSpotlight2-1.pdf.

For More Information:
Members of NLIHC are eligible for additional assistance with the data in this and other reports at no additional charge.

Please contact:
Megan Bolton, Senior Research Analyst, NLIHC
email; 202-662-1530 x245

from HAC News, March 7 2012

Child poverty in the U.S. increased dramatically between 2000 and 2010, with the largest increase in counties containing small cities (10,000-50,000 people), where the rate is now 25.1%, as reported in the Daily Yonder.  The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count project examined American Community Survey data and found more children living in areas of concentrated poverty across the country in 2006-2010 than in 2000. State rates of children living in such areas ranged from 23% in Mississippi to 1% in Wyoming and Vermont. African-American, American Indian, and Latino children are between six and nine times more likely than white children to live in these communities. Visit http://datacenter.kidscount.org to read a summary and access data by state, county, city, or congressional district.

from HAC News, March 7 2012

Nearly one in four working households spends more than 50% of its income on housing, according to the new Housing Landscape 2012 report from the Center for Housing Policy, using 2010 American Community Survey data. Visit http://www.nhc.org.

Posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.: 01 Feb 2012 06:58 PM PST

A new paper from Stella J. Adams, a consultant and member of the Board of Directors of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, is HERE.