Many of today’s headlines about multifamily housing have focused on the market’s two extremes: homelessness and high-end penthouses. Meanwhile, a crisis has been growing in the “missing middle;” there is a shortage of affordable rental housing for middle-class workers like teachers, firefighters and police officers. In recent years, middle-income families have been struggling with flat wages and rising childcare, education and healthcare costs. Not only are families being priced out of homeownership, but they’re finding fewer rental units in their price range. Indeed, rents have been rising, particularly in cities with booming economies. Nationwide, only 37 percent of all available units rent out at or below $1,200 per month, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) Out of Reach report and the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. Yet only in 13 states do workers earn an average of at least $22.96 per hour, the amount required to comfortably afford a $1,200/month apartment. Charlotte is short 34,000 affordable housing units and Salt Lake City lacks 54,000. In total, there is a need for hundreds of thousands more affordable rental units. The problem is a matter of supply as well as demand. Formidable obstacles currently impede the …
