Affordable housing developers are fighting an uphill battle, and on multiple fronts. On the demand side, renters are more cost-burdened than ever before. According to the “America’s Rental Housing 2026”report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, the number of renters who are cost-burdened (households that spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities) reached a new record high in 2024. The report found that 22.7 million renter households were cost-burdened in 2024, with 12.1 million households qualifying as “severely cost-burdened” (households that …
