Do you know where your town's newly hired kindergarten teacher, just out of college, lives? Or where the cheerful man who pours your morning latte lives? What about the young MBTA bus driver?

Unless they inherited a family home, reside with their parents, or can draw on family wealth, they probably do not own homes. On salaries of less than $40,000 a year, these workers cannot afford the monthly mortgage payments and property taxes on a starter house (if they could find one) in the Boston metropolitan area. Last year, the median sales price of an existing home in Boston was $445,000 -- up 7 percent from last year. While home prices are likely to moderate, job growth and constraints on supply are likely to keep home prices beyond the reach of young families. If, as most economists forecast, long-term interest rates inch upward, those moderating prices will be offset by higher mortgage payments.

So what are the options in a country where homeownership is ''the American dream"? What do young singles and couples starting out on the job ladder do? They rent.

Each year, though, the search for ''affordable" apartments grows more tortured. Rising rents, coupled with stagnant supply, compel people to scramble for someplace they can afford, near where they work, or near public transportation. Remember, twenty-somethings saddled with high rents do not have much left for car payments.

Not surprisingly, some young people opt out of Boston's housing scramble -- taking their talent and energy to more affordable cities. Ironically, this region, whose universities produce our most talented engineers, physicians, and scientists, may end up losing these new graduates. According to the US Census, in 2003 Massachusetts was the only state to lose population.

Other people make do, resigned to paying high rents, reluctantly accepting the reality that they -- unlike their parents -- may never buy a home. After all, a would-be homebuyer must not only have an income hefty enough for monthly payments, he or she must also have the requisite downpayment. And high rents leave renters with little end-of-the-month savings. So even though the renter who pays $900 a month for a two-bedroom apartment knows that he could be making payments on a mortgage -- getting more space plus a chance to build up equity -- he may never save enough to leap from tenant to owner. Indeed, people eager to buy may, like recent graduates, also look to more affordable spots. They may leave the Boston area--or even leave the state for New Hampshire or Rhode Island. These ''uber-commuters" will then face more than two hours in daily transit.

Still other renters simply struggle. They have few choices, but must cope with rents that leave them with little for food, healthcare, recreation -- let alone savings. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the housing wage required to rent a modest two bedroom apartment in Boston was $24.35 -- the eighth highest in the nation.

In the recent past, the government -- at all levels -- has viewed the percentage of homeowners as the barometer of success -- and has skewed programs, policies, and energy toward homeownership. But a healthy community comprises renters and owners (just as a healthy economy encompasses people at all levels of the workforce). Those who do not want to own homes, or cannot afford to, also deserve the government's attention. But, in fact, government has often exacerbated the renters' plight.

Consider the dual signals. On the one hand, agencies such as the Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency and the Massachusetts Housing Partnership have an array of subsidies designed to spur multi-family rental housing. On the other hand, local communities cringe at the words ''multi-family," especially when joined with the word ''affordable."

To discourage building, these communities enact large lot zoning and regulatory restrictions, which drive the cost of land higher. Some have explicit prohibitions against multifamily housing. Local officials pass ''land use controls" ostensibly to preserve the quality of life for residents, but those controls severely circumscribe the quality of life for the region's workforce. Ultimately, higher housing prices lead to increased labor costs, which could undermine our economic competitiveness.

Furthermore, the supply of rental housing itself is shrinking. As federal contracts expire, owners of federally subsidized rental housing are converting their units to high-priced condominiums -- threatening to make the search for an apartment even more tortuous.

It is time to make room for renters in housing policy.