Low wage employees often cannot afford places to live despite being employed. There is a severe shortage of housing available for our lowest wage earners. The terrible fact is that many hard-working American families cannot afford a safe, decent place to call home. Even if they able to work full time, homeless and near-homeless people often have trouble finding an affordable place to live. In Marion County, for example, the average hourly wage of working families who receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) payments is $7.62. But the wage needed to afford a local two-bedroom apartment is $11.31.
These working families deserve to be able to live in the communities in which they work. Many of the people who need affordable housing are providing vital services to the community such as health aides, day care providers, mechanics, clerks, construction workers and others.
Over the past twenty to thirty years, there has been a growing gap between low wage earnings and rent. Nationwide, there has been a 68 percent increase in just the past four years in the number of working-class families who spend more than half of their income on housing. A single parent employed in a minimum wage job in Indianapolis would have to work the equivalent of two full-time jobs – over 86 hours a week—to be able to afford a decent, safe, two-bedroom apartment at a fair market rent for herself and two children. Quite simply, many people will remain at risk of becoming homeless – or will struggle to move out of homelessness – unless many more housing units are made affordable to residents with the lowest incomes.
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