Housing
Severe Housing Needs May Return to Foreclosure-Crisis Levels
Despite the buoyant economy, the number of hardest-hit households is close to record levels of the foreclosure crisis in 2011.
A new report released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development this month shows that the number of American households facing worst-case housing scenarios is returning to the record crisis levels seen during the foreclosure crisis.
The 2017 report on Worst-Case Housing Needs finds that 8.3 million households suffered extreme housing conditions in 2015, an increase of more than 580,000 households over 2013. HUD defines “worst-case housing needs” as very low–income households who do not receive government aid for housing and who pay more than one-half of their income toward rent or live in unsafe conditions (or both). CityLab’s Tanvi Misra plotted out where the worst-off families are living today.