PORT ANGELES — People on the brink of renting an apartment are watching the chasm widen between them and their dream.
According to information from the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, renting may be as far out of reach as buying, even for people earning average wages in Clallam County.
Members of the North Olympic Regional Housing Network propose two solutions for the crisis that is boosting the number of homeless people in the region:
Lower the cost of housing and increase the affordable housing supply.
Neither is likely to happen overnight, and some solutions will require creative thinking, housing network representatives say.
Answers include building up, as in multiple stories, not just out, as in spacious yards.
Fair market rents
Fair market rents in Clallam County, as determined by the U.S. Department of Housing of Urban Development, range from $414 for an efficiency apartment to $898 for a four-bedroom dwelling.
But those figures fall far below the actual rents landlords charge, which often don’t include utilities.
When landlords and HUD talk about “affordable housing,” they mean rents or mortgage payments that are approximately 30 percent of a person’s or family’s income.
In Clallam County, HUD says, the median household income is $50,600. The most that family should pay for housing is $1,265 per month.
Income among renting families, however, averages $26,419. The most such a family can afford for housing is $660 monthly.
For people earning such low wages, the figures are bleak.
An average single renter earns $7.49 per hour, just 14 cents over the minimum wage of $7.35
A person would need to earn $7.96 an hour — 61 cents more than the minimum wage — to afford an efficiency apartment.
He or she would need to earn $8.81 an hour for a one-bedroom dwelling and $11.46 for two-bedroom quarters, according to the low-income housing coalition.