Rural Communities' Housing Needs

A study by the Urban Institute shows just how dire the affordable housing crunch is for several of the nation's rural communities.

Using seven metrics including population growth rate, poverty rate, vacancy rate, and unemployment rate, the report identifies 152 rural counties with the most severe affordable rental housing needs in the country. Several counties were located along the U.S.-Mexico border from California to Texas, in the Southern Mississippi Delta, and in the Southeast. Senior research associate and report author Corianne Scally voiced her surprise about the severity of the problems, The Huffington Post reports. One of the common trends between the communities are populations growing faster and getting poorer than the national average, and low vacancy rates among rental homes.

America’s well-documented affordable housing crisis is often framed in terms of the big urban areas, where housing and living costs are sky high and rapid gentrification pushes rents and prices up and lower-income residents out. But the affordability crisis is also playing out across rural America. It’s more spread out and driven by different factors, but it’s no less devastating.

Read more