Joaquin Uy, Communications Specialist

When it comes to finding an affordable home, challenges continue for Washington’s lowest income renters. This is according to a recently released joint report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) and the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance (Housing Alliance).

The report is titled, Housing Spotlight: The Affordable Rental Housing Gap Persists. It reveals an acute and persistent shortage of rental homes across the nation that are both affordable and available to the lowest income Americans. The numbers specific to Washington State are particularly glaring:

Two full-time workers with a child earning Washington State’s minimum wage make about $39,000 per year. This number is just under 50% of the median income for a Seattle-Bellevue area family of three. In this income range, only 55 affordable and available units exist for every 100 households.

Unsurprisingly, according to the report, the less you earn, the less affordable homes available to you.

For instance in Spokane, where the area median income (AMI) is approximately $63,000, wait staff make about $23,000 a year or less (roughly 30% of AMI). For every 100 of these workers, the state only has 28 affordable and available homes.

The average fast food worker in Washington State earns roughly $12,000 a year. This is about 15% of the state’s median income (approximately $74,000). According to our findings, Washington residents earning this much will likely spend a great deal of time looking for a home because only 16 affordable housing units are available for every 100 similar households. Renters with incomes at or below 15% also tend to be elderly or disabled individuals living on fixed incomes, such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI). In this income group, 90% of these renters spent more than half of their income on housing costs.

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