Monterey, CA Poor Seniors Have A Difficult Time Finding Low Income Affordable Housing

View From A Nonprofit Serving Carmel, Carmel Valley, Gonzalez, Greenfield, King City, Marina, Monterey, Pacific Grove, Pebble Beach, Salinas, Seaside And Soledad California

I was not surprised to read that low-income renters across the country are facing an increasingly bleak outlook in their search for affordable housing.  It's a very difficult situation here on the Monterey Peninsula, particularly for senior citizens which are living on a fixed income.  The problem is two-fold.  First, there has never been enough low-income housing to go around to begin with.  Second, more people have fallen into the official poverty zone, and there aren't new units being built to accommodate them.  A recently released study done at Harvard University found that between 2007 and 2011, the number of extremely low-income renters (defined as those earning 30% or less of the median income in their local area) rose 2.5% to 12.1 million.  Harvard put out a report entitled The State of the Nation's Housing, and it's fairly depressing.  Between 2007 and 2011, as the extremely poor were increasing, the number of affordable rental units fell from 6.9 million to 6.8 million.  This doubled the gap between units and those needing them.  Households which spend half of their household income or more on rent reached a new high in 2011, up 14.6% from 2007 and up 49% over the past decade.  These are very eye opening statistics and I hope government officials work hard to make more low-income units available to the poverty stricken, and senior citizens in particular.

Please note that this blog reflects my personal opinion and may or may not reflect the opinion of Hands to Help Seniors and the individual members comprising the Board of Governors.