When our region has achieved affordable housing for all, no household will be burdened by the cost of their housing.

The Affordable Housing Trust Fund Coalition’s goal is to increase the number of households that have affordable housing. When our region has achieved affordable housing for all, no household will be burdened by the cost of their housing.

Overview

A renter-occupied household is described as “rent burdened” when the household pays more than 30 percent of its income on gross rent, which includes the contracted rent and utilities. An owner-occupied household is described as “housing cost burdened” when the household pays more than 30 percent of its income on selected housing costs, including mortgage, taxes, utilities, and fees.  

We have disaggregated housing cost burden by income level, tenure, and geography. 

The grade for achieving affordable housing for each group is the inverse of the percentage of households experiencing housing cost burden.

100%

- Percentage of Households with Housing Cost Burden

=

Percentage of Households with Affordable Housing

What is AMI?

AMI stands for Area Median Income – or the middle point of incomes in a geographical region with 50% of all household incomes falling below the AMI and the other 50% above. The AMI used in this report card is based on the St. Louis Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), which includes twelve counties across Missouri and Illinois.

Findings

In the St. Louis region:

• 71% of all households have affordable housing, scoring a “C.”

• 56% of renters have affordable housing, scoring an “F.”

• 79% of homeowners have affordable housing, scoring a “C.”

Whether you can achieve affordable housing in St. Louis very much depends on your income.

• Only 22% of households with incomes less than 30% AMI have affordable housing, scoring an “F.”

• Less than a third of households with incomes between 31-50% AMI have affordable housing, scoring an “F.”

• Two-thirds of households with incomes between 51-80% AMI have affordable housing, scoring a “D.”

• 85% of households with incomes between 81-100% AMI have affordable housing, scoring a “B.”

• 96% of households who make more than the area median income have affordable housing. This group is the only group that achieves an “A” in affordable housing.

There are racial disparities in access to affordable housing in St. Louis that persist whether one is a renter or a homeowner.

• All Households: While 77% of all white households have affordable housing, only 56% of all black households do.

• Renters: 61% of white renters have affordable housing, scoring a “D.” 45% of black renters have affordable housing, scoring an “F.”

• Homeowners: 82% of white homeowners have affordable housing, scoring a “B.” 72% of black homeowners have affordable housing, scoring a “C.”

Origin of the 30 percent rule

Three years after being the first African-American elected to the U.S. Senate, Senator Edward Brooke authored an amendment to the 1968 Fair Housing Act (which he co-wrote with Senator Walter Mondale) to mandate public housing rent to be set to no more than 25 percent of a resident’s income. In 1981, Congress raised the upper limit to 30 percent of household income.

Homeowners

Housing cost-burdened homeowners are more evenly distributed throughout the region than housing cost-burdened renters. However, more than 40% of homeowners in pockets of North City and County spend more than they can afford on their housing.

 Housing Cost Burden by Race

Housing cost burden data disaggregated by race, income, and tenure has been made available for St. Louis City and County by the National Equity Atlas project by Policylink and USC Equity Research Institute. Having data available at this level of granularity allows us to better understand the relationship between tenure, income, and race much more clearly. The strongest predictor of housing cost burden rates is income, not race or tenure. This means Black residents are more likely to experience housing cost burden because they are more likely to have low incomes. This is why communities that openly practiced outright racial discrimination in zoning, lending, and housing now practice income discrimination in the form of exclusionary zoning, large security deposits, and lacking protections for source of income in rental housing.

Rent burden rates are highest among Black renters in St. Louis City at 58%, followed by Black renters in Saint Louis County. Rent burden rates are lowest among Asian renters in Saint Louis County at 19%, followed by white renters in St. Louis city. The biggest difference in rent burden rates by geography within a racial group is with Asian renters, 50% of whom experience rent burden in the City compared to 19% in the County.  

Housing cost burden is much less common for homeowners than renters across racial groups in both St. Louis City and County, but again this turns out to be mostly a function of income more than the act of homeownership itself.

Low-income City homeowners, regardless of race, are less likely than low-income County homeowners to experience housing cost burden. However, housing cost burden rates are still high across the board for low-income households! In our grading methodology, our region receives an F.  

Overall, this chart looks very similar to the previous one. However, housing cost burden rates have dropped 12-23% across the board, with the smallest decreases for Black renters. Black City renters are slightly more likely to be rent burdened than Black County renters. Again, our region receives an F for achieving affordable housing for any type of household at this income level. 

For non-low income households, housing cost burden is rarely experienced, regardless of tenure, race, or geography. For reference, 350% of poverty level is the equivalent of $45,000 for a single person household, $61,000 for a two-person household, and $77,000 for a three-person household.

Severe Housing Cost Burden

When a household has severe housing cost burden it means the household pays more than 50 percent of its income on rent. These rates are also high for the region. This data is not graded, as no level of severe rent burden should be acceptable.

What about other metrics around affordable housing?

The Affordable Housing Trust Fund Coalition identified many measures of success for achieving affordable housing-related goals. These are explored in the remainder of the report.