In the Media

A survey Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies Remodeling Futures Program and the Farnsworth Group conducted in September found that 43% of the renters surveyed said they were worried their home had a negative impact on their health, safety, or well-being.

“The younger boomers were hit especially hard in the Great Recession, many losing their homes close to retirement,” said Jennifer Molinsky, project director for the Aging Society Program at Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

While the economy shrank by 3.5 percent, spending on home improvements increased by 3 percent in 2020, according to a study from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

“When you look at that mortgage transaction, you're really at the end of a long string of other factors that discriminate against people of color that have created obstacles to owning homes as well,” said Chris Herbert, managing director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

In 2020, more than 7 million households moved to a different county as many people moved from big cities to the suburbs, an increase of half a million compared to 2019. But the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University found that these upticks in early and late 2020 did not represent "a significant change from prior years in the total number of moves."

This shifting view of tech’s impact on the urban landscape was a key thread running through a recent symposium at Harvard, ​​Bringing Digitalization Home, which explored how tech can help or hinder progress on housing affordability and discrimination. The question of technological innovation and housing has long been a topic of interest for David Luberoff, deputy director of the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Prior to the pandemic, researchers at Harvard reported that “nearly half of all renter households (spent) more than 30% of their incomes on rent and utilities each month.” (Underscoring the essential nature of shelter, their article is entitled “The Rent Eats First.”)

There are also more renters looking for housing—981,000 more at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021—creating extremely low vacancy rates of 5.8%, the lowest since the mid-1980s, according to a recent report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

A significant percent of seniors (41% between 65 and 79 and 71% aged 80 and older, according to the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies), have physical conditions that necessitate accessibility features that can be used by any individual of any age or ability.

A study by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies predicts that by 2038 there will be 18 million households with people over the age of 80. More than half of them will live alone, too.