With Employment and Construction of Affordable Housing Units at Record Lows, Minnesotans Stretch Minimum Wage Salaries to Pay for Rent
Legal Services E-lert
Bibliographic Info:
Author: Bob Shaw
Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press, “More and more Minnesota renters just a heartbeat from homelessness”
Date: June 26, 2011
The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports: “For many Minnesotans, home has never been so hard to pay for. The number of people who can barely afford a place to live has reached an all-time high, creating a new kind of client for homeless shelters - the almost-homeless. ‘I am not a failure,’ said ‘Lovie’ Robinson, 22, as he slumped at a table in the Dorothy Day Center in St. Paul. ‘It's just that there are not a lot of jobs for people like me.’ Like many of the near-homeless, he goes to the shelter for food and supplies so he can pay his rent.. . . Robinson is one of a growing number of Minnesotans paying more than half their incomes in rent or mortgage payments, regarded as the point at which housing is not affordable. That number spiked to 14 percent in 2009, after decades of hovering near 8 percent. Some reasons for the burst in the ranks of the almost-homeless are familiar, including high unemployment and a drop in wages. . . . Of 12 Midwestern states, Minnesota is worst for rental affordability for minimum-wage workers, according to a report issued in May by the Minnesota Housing Partnership. The report said statewide rents increased an inflation-adjusted 7 percent from 2000 to 2009 - as the income of renters fell 21 percent. It's not just the almost-homeless choking the rental market - it's recent college graduates or anyone else unable to find work. ‘Everyone is competing for the lower end of the market,’ said Martha Eaves, public benefits supervisor for the Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services. . . . In 1997, the Metropolitan Council set city-by-city goals for building housing units, both owned and rented, that low-income earners could afford. Those goals were all but ignored. Out of 90 cities, only three met their goals. Between 2001 and 2009, as demand for housing soared, construction of new, affordable units per year actually fell by a third.”