The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University released the report “America’s Rental Housing 2026” along with interactive maps and data. The report shows the number of renters with cost burdens has reached another record high, rents for new leases show modest declines, and vacancy rates are ticking up.

Below are some key points relative to older adults that may be informative to age- and dementia friendly communities:

• “Of the nearly 48.3 million people living in cost-burdened households, 13.0 million are children under age 18 and 5.8 million are older adults [pg. 25].”
• “The characteristics of renter households making less than $30,000 point to the substantial economic challenges they face. These households skew older than their wealthier counterparts. Nearly a third (31 percent) are headed by someone who is age 65 and over. And more of them live alone, meaning they do not have other household members with whom they can pool incomes [pg. 11].”
• “For older households, renting can offer homes with more accessibility features and fewer maintenance responsibilities. Given these benefits, the rentership rate increases in later life, and the large size of the baby boom generation accounts for 8.6 million renter households, or nearly a fifth of all renters. The smaller Gen X (born 1965–1979) has had less influence on rental demand but now makes up about a fifth of renters (9.5 million households) [pg.12].”
• “Also at risk are 660,000 project-based HUD units (30 percent), including 380,000 project-based Section 8 units, 220,000 public housing units, and 56,000 units of supportive housing for older adults and persons with disabilities. This exposure exacerbates the host of preservation challenges already plaguing the subsidized stock and further threatens the already-limited options affordable to low-income households [pg. 18].”

More detail and interactive maps are available on the report’s website here.