In the Media

“Inequalities were bad and growing prior to 2020,” says Daniel McCue, a senior research associate at the Harvard Joint Center of Housing Studies. “Then the pandemic hits, and it hits hardest those who were already in the most vulnerable position. It’s making the affordability crisis worse.”

A new report by researchers at Harvard University finds that only the most well-off renters will benefit from the impact of the pandemic on the rental market.

In 2019, a time when the economy was far more robust, nearly 30% of Inland Empire renters spent more than half their gross income on housing, according to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

In many US metro areas, including New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami and Seattle, more than 40 percent of older adult households are “cost burdened,” according to a Harvard Joint Center for Housing study.

Far more Black and Hispanic Americans are falling behind in rents and mortgages than their white counterparts, according to a Harvard University study.

The economic fallout from the pandemic is hitting the lowest-income renters especially hard. That’s one finding from the new State of the Nation’s Housing report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.

Because of the growing shortage of available homes to buy or rent, housing costs have been rising sharply for the last three years. In January, even before the pandemic hit, the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies issued a report showing that rent affordability was beginning to affect even middle-income consumers.

Living in a multigenerational neighborhood in your retirement years can be good for your health and quality of life with age. That’s one takeaway from a recent research report by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies and the AARP Public Policy Institute.

“The last thing we want is for people to age in place but never leave their homes,” said Jennifer Molinsky, a report co-author. “So it’s important we create the kind of environment where people are supported and able to be in public spaces.”

According to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, in 2017 the median cost of a home improvement project was $1,200.