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Report Underscores Need For More Affordable Rental Housing

A new report shows more than 70 percent of extremely low income renters spend more than half of their income on rent and utility costs.

Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio spokesperson Suzanne Gravette Acker says the problem stems from the 2008 mortgage meltdown.

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The National Low Income Housing Coalition says the market average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Ohio is 720 dollars. To afford an apartment without spending more than 30 percent of income on housing, a household must earn 24 hundred dollars a month. Households are classified as extremely low income if their monthly take is at or below 30 percent of the community average. In Franklin County, it's 21 thousand dollars a year for a family of four. Acker says there is a need for over 270 thousand more rental units in Ohio. Last December, funding began to be set aside for the National Housing Trust Fund to expand the supply of low-income housing.

Jim has been with WCBE since 1996. Before that he worked as a reporter at another Columbus radio station, and for three newspapers in Southwest Florida.
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