America's Rental Housing: The Key to a Balanced National Policy
The damage from today’s mortgage foreclosure crisis reaches deep into the rental market. With affordability already a long-standing problem, the current housing debacle not only adds to the number of households competing for low-cost rentals and threatens current renters with eviction from their homes, but also increases the costs of financing rental housing construction and preservation. Moreover, because many high-risk loans now in default are concentrated in low-income and minority communities, the fallout from foreclosures is hitting the same neighborhoods where many of the nation’s most economically vulnerable renters live.