Chapter 14 – Community Development & Housing
14.8 Rental Crisis
The United States is facing a rental crisis driven by steadily rising rents, a shrinking supply of affordable units, and increasing financial pressure on households. In many communities, rents have grown faster than wages, leaving families struggling to keep up. Nearly half of renters nationwide are considered “cost burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing, which limits what they can spend on other necessities.
This crisis affects both large cities and smaller communities. Places once considered affordable are seeing higher demand for rental housing while new construction lags behind. At the same time, the number of low-cost rental units is falling as older buildings are renovated, demolished, or converted into more expensive housing. Assistance programs, such as housing vouchers, help some families, but the need far exceeds the resources available.
The result is growing instability. Many renters are forced to relocate more often, double up with relatives or friends, or face the threat of eviction and homelessness. The rental crisis highlights the ongoing challenge of ensuring that safe and stable housing is accessible for people across the country.
Evictions & Evicted
An eviction is a legal process by which a landlord forces a tenant to leave a rental property—usually because of nonpayment of rent, lease violations, or other issues. Landlords have a right to earn a return on their property and to hold irresponsible tenants accountable, but evictions can also disrupt lives, often pushing families into homelessness, making it harder for them to find new housing, and leaving lasting damage to their credit and rental history.
In his Pulitzer Prize–winning book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, sociologist Matthew Desmond follows low-income families in Milwaukee over several years to show how eviction is not just a symptom of poverty—it helps cause it. Desmond argues that eviction is a mechanism through which landlords extract wealth from the poor, and that the threat of eviction puts extreme pressure on families, disrupting work, health, and children’s schooling.
Desmond’s work has had wide influence in policy circles and public understanding. In interviews like his appearance on PBS NewsHour, he highlights the human cost behind eviction statistics: mothers forced into unsafe housing, children moved from school to school, and entire families pushed to the brink—even when they are trying to maintain housing stability.
Watch the PBS NewsHour interview:
YouTube URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBT8GGhh2Tg&t=8s
Duration: 7:01
Evictions are not just one-time events—they ripple outward, affecting neighborhoods, social services, and the stability of communities.
