The Cost Of Living is Driving Us Out!!!

Renters Squeezed By Housing Shortage
On 2 Coasts, Renters Squeezed by Lack of Affordable Housing

STAMFORD, CT -- This isn't how Simon and Jennifer Morris envisioned married life sharing a charity-subsidized suite with four other hard-up families, abiding by a curfew and other rules that make them feel they are back in high school.

But for a working-class couple with two small children, trying to stick it out in their pricey hometown, housing options are few.

They abandoned their previous one-bedroom apartment when the rent rose from $1,200 to $1,425.

Public housing has long waiting lists, so they moved into a shelter for dislocated families in a converted YMCA.

The goal: Save enough money to move south and buy a home where costs are lower.

Around them, southwestern Connecticut's Fairfield County is booming, due partly to an influx of investment banks. New housing projects routinely cater to the affluent.

"But everybody forgets the poor guy...the one ----who pumps your gas, ----who builds your hotel, ----who bags your groceries," said Simon Morris, a 35-year-old carpenter.

"The cost of living is driving us out."

On both coasts of the United States, and many cities in between, hundreds of thousands of renters face comparable plights.

The home mortgage crisis has received far more notice, but experts say the ranks of renters with dire housing problems are growing faster than the ranks of defaulting homeowners.

The Center for Housing Policy reports that the number of working-family renters paying more than half their income for housing has soared from 1 million to 2.1 million since 1997.

Overall, advocacy groups say there are 9 million low-income renter households and only 6.2 million units they can reasonably afford.

"These people spend huge portions of their income on their housing," said Sheila Crowley, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

"They don't do things that we all would like to do save money to buy a house, or for college or retirement.

It's a very day-to-day existence."

In the Stamford area, a breadwinner needs to earn more than $30 an hour to afford the rent of a typical two-bedroom apartment, the highest figure in the nation.
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San Francisco ranks a close second placing immense burdens on residents such as schoolteacher Meagan Devine and retiree Jose Morales.

Devine, 30, lives with her sister, who is eight months pregnant, and brother-in-law in a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco's Sunset district.

She sleeps on the couch and spends weekends at her parents' house in a distant suburb, where she keeps her clothes and books.

In October, she'll begin housesitting for family friends in Berkeley, who will be on sabbatical until Jan. 1.

After that? She isn't sure.

Devine isn't an itinerant hippie or recent college grad trying to map a career path.

She's a professional with a master's degree in math, and could likely command a six-figure salary at a Silicon Valley engineering firm.

But since college, she has yearned to be a teacher.

After getting her master's, she taught the children of crop pickers.

Since 2002, she's been a math instructor at Balboa High School, once a hardscrabble school on the city's south side.

Test scores and morale are on the rise, and Devine feels she's making a big difference by teaching pre-calculus and algebra to the diverse student body.

"I don't ever want to leave Balboa I'd love to retire from here," Devine said as she stacked papers following the afternoon bell.

"The only problem is I can't afford to live here on a teacher's salary."

After taxes and a $350 deposit into a retirement fund, she takes home about $2,500 per month.

One-bedroom apartments in desirable neighborhoods near friends and public transit start around $2,000 per month.

Studios start around $1,500.

Devine said she'll likely settle for roommates a fate she didn't envision for herself after college, and a far cry from her dream of home ownership.

Technically, she could afford her own modest apartment but she wants to heed the standard advice and not spend more than a third of her income on housing.

That's not easy;