DENVER — Single mom Caitlyn Colbert watched as rent for her two-bedroom apartment doubled, then tripled and then quadrupled over a decade in Denver \u2014 from $750 to $3,374 last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every month, like millions of Americans, Colbert juggled her costs. Pay rent or swim team fees for one of her three kids. Rent or school supplies. Rent or groceries. Colbert, a social worker who helps people stay financially afloat, would often arrive home to notices giving her 30 days to pay rent and a late fee or face eviction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEvery month you just gotta budget and then you still fall short,\u201d she said, adding what became a monthly refrain: \u201cWell, this month at least we have $13 left.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Millions of Americans, especially people of color, are facing those same, painful decisions as a record number struggle with unaffordable rent increases, a crisis fueled by rising prices from inflation, a shortage of affordable housing and the end of pandemic relief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The latest data from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, released in January, found that a record high 22.4 million renter households \u2014 or half of renters nationwide \u2014 were spending more than 30% of their income on rent in 2022. The number of affordable units \u2014 with rents under $600 \u2014 also dropped to 7.2 million that year, 2.1 million fewer than a decade earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Those factors contributed to a dramatic rise in eviction filings and a record number of people becoming homeless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of the worst years we\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d said Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a senior research associate at the Harvard center, who added that the level of cost-burdened households in 2022 had not been seen since the Great Recession in 2008, when 10 million Americans lost their homes to foreclosure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After failing to make a significant dent in the problem over the last decade, state and federal lawmakers across the U.S. are making housing a priority in 2024 and throwing the kitchen sink at the issue \u2014 including proposals to enact eviction protections, institute zoning reforms, cap annual rent increases and dedicate tens of billions of dollars toward building more housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The hardest hit have been renters who made less than $30,000, and who, after paying rent and utilities, were left with just $310 a month on average, Airgood-Obrycki said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo you can certainly imagine the kinds of tradeoffs that have to happen,\u201d she said. \u201cCost-burden renters are spending less on things like food<\/u><\/a> and health care<\/u><\/a> and retirement. So, there are significant implications for the long-term well-being of these households.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Denver, Colbert’s bathroom roof partly caved in from a leak last year, and the landlord delayed a fix even as rent went up $200 a month. It was the last straw for Colbert, who moved in to live with family and is purchasing a home through Habitat for Humanity, which gave her a low-interest loan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s so disheartening, paying so much and not even seeing where your rent is going,\u201d Colbert said. “It just hits you like, \u2018This is for nothing.\u2019”<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Auburn, Massachusetts, pervasive rent hikes have already hit the last bastion of affordable housing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just off an interstate alongside a pond, residents at the American Mobile Home Park face rent increases upwards of 40%. Many tenants, mostly seniors and others on fixed incomes, haven\u2019t signed new leases with those increases. The group Lawyers For Civil Rights has sent a letter to the landlord accusing it of \u201cunconscionable rent increases,” and failing to provide critical services like adequate garbage and snow removal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHow am I going to pay that?\u201d said Amy Case, 49, wondering how she’ll balance the $345 monthly increase with the $200 she has to spend on medications and the cost of a twice-yearly MRI to monitor her brain tumor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what else to cut back on,\u201d said Case, an administrative assistant at a local college, who said she would only have $300 left over each month for other necessities. \u201cProbably less groceries. I certainly can\u2019t cut back on my medications.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another tenant, 72-year-old Ann Urbanovitch, who works as a cashier at a department store, is facing a similar rent increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI expected it to go up $100, but $345. I was shocked,” she said. “I have to dip into my retirement savings \u2026 because, you know, times are tough.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The mobile home park owner, Parakeet Communities, did not respond to a request from The Associated Press for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With many families struggling to pay, landlords in Colorado are increasingly turning to evictions, with over 50,000 evictions filed last year, according to data from the Colorado Judicial Branch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c2023 was the high-water mark for evictions filings in recorded Colorado history,” said Zach Neumann, co-CEO of the Community Economic Defense Project, which offers financial and legal assistance to Colorado residents struggling with rent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Monique Gant, the mother of two boys, stuffed her belongings into boxes in a Denver suburb last week after losing a drawn-out eviction fight, planning to move between long-stay hotel rooms and her RV for now. Gant’s hair has thinned from the stress she buries beneath a stoic face for her children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy kids, they assume that I am Super Woman,\u201d said Gant. But “when I go to take a shower, put some music on, I cry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Already, she said, her 10- and 11-year-old sons have been in fights at school and on the bus, and aren’t engaging with classes as they once did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n About 40% of those facing eviction each year are children \u2014 some 2.9 million, according to a study co-authored by Nick Graetz at Princeton University\u2019s Eviction Lab, who said research shows wide-ranging impacts of housing turbulence and eviction on children\u2019s mental health and development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “We can see that things really fall off for children that experience eviction,\u201d Graetz said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Congress, lawmakers are working on a bill that would expand a federal program that awards tax credits to housing developers who agree to set aside units for low-income tenants. Supporters say that could lead to the construction of 200,000 more affordable homes. Some lawmakers are also calling for more rental assistance, including a significant increase in funding for housing vouchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA larger commitment from the federal government is required,\u201d said Chris Herbert, managing director of the Harvard center. “Only then will the nation finally make a meaningful dent in the housing affordability crisis making life so difficult for millions of people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the state level, Colorado lawmakers have proposed a bill to limit the reasons for which a landlord can evict a tenant. Other bills would scrap the filing fee for tenants in an eviction case, and roll back local rules prohibiting homeowners from renting out a separate unit on their property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf we don\u2019t act now,\u201d said Colorado Gov. Jared Polis in his state of the state speech last month, largely focused on housing, \u201cwe will soon face a spiraling point of no return.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other states feel the same urgency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Washington state, a bill would require that 10% of new housing around transit hubs be affordable for low-income residents. Another would bar landlords from increasing rent by more than 5% annually during a rental agreement term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Massachusetts, a bill would invest over $4 billion toward building and shoring up affordable housing in response to the state’s estimate that more than 200,000 additional homes will be needed by 2030. It would be the largest housing investment in state history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, it would come too late for the rent increase Urbanovitch faces to stay in her mobile home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy biggest worry,\u201d she said, “is not really having a place to move to. There\u2019s no place to go.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n