Providing home ownership opportunities should be a founding premise of a national aspiration.

Housing Cost Burdens
Despite unusually strong income growth throughout the 1990s, an astonishing 95 million Americans had housing cost burdens or lived in crowded or inadequate conditions in 2001. In fact, more than twice as many people in this country face housing problems as lack health insurance. And, although the majority of Americans are generally well housed, nearly one third of all households spend 30 percent of their income on housing and 13 percent spend 50 percent or more.

Not surprisingly, housing challenges are most severe among those at the bottom of the income distribution. Fully half of the lowest income households spend at least 50 percent of their income on housing.

The cost of homeownership has risen at staggering rates for those who can least afford it. In 2004, first-home buyers dropped by a third, accelerating a longer-term decline in home ownership rates. The gap is growing, taking the dream of home ownership farther from the grasp of working families.

The graph illustrates the growing gap between the price a family of four at 60% of median income can afford to pay to purchase a home and what the median home price has grown to over the last 13 years.

For all of us, there’s no place like home. The role of the family home in strengthening relationships within families and for the community and the nation cannot be understated. And we must recognize that inadequate housing can cause serious limitations on family life, employment opportunities and can place both emotional and physical strain on a family.