Rethinking Rental Housing: Expanding the Ability of Rental Housing to Serve as a Pathway to Economic and Social Opportunity

W04-11: Access to decent and affordable housing has long been a cornerstone of efforts to expand social and economic opportunity for all Americans. One in three households – 34 million in all – currently rent their primary residence. Even with the dramatic boom in homeownership over the 1990s, the share of households renting their dwelling unit has fallen only slightly. While economic factors, including income, housing prices and access to mortgage financing influence tenure and other housing choices of families and individuals, these choices are also linked to decisions concerning where to live, how to earn a living, make friends, raise a family, or otherwise secure a meaningful life. In this way, housing and tenure choices involve a complex set of economic and legal factors, as well as social, psychological and political factors…