A new report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies continues to underline the dire state of Indiana’s affordable housing market.
Indiana saw the loss of some 41,000 affordable housing units between 2019 and 2021.
Indiana’s trends are consistent with much of the rest of the Midwest and country. Rents are rising, and the number of affordable units continues to decline.
Alexander Hermann is a research associate with the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard. He said rent is still increasing, but the rate at which it’s headed up has slowed down.
“Indianapolis is no real exception,” he said. “If you look at Indianapolis, rents in the first quarter of this year were still rising eight percent – that’s still really high historically, but down from about 13 percent rent growth one year earlier.”
Hermann said the loss of low-cost rentals nationally means a significant portion of renters are cost-burdened, which means over 30 percent of their income goes towards paying rent.
“In 2021, after paying for housing the median renter earning under $30,000 had just $380 left over per month to spend on everything else – including food, including clothes, including school supplies,” he said.
Local housing advocates have said Indiana is in a particularly bad position because as rents have gone up, wages have stayed low relative to other Midwestern states.
