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The Western US is at the epicenter of America’s affordable rental housing crunch.
California’s particular shortage of nearly 1 million affordable and available renters exceeds every other state, according to the nonprofit National Low Income Housing Coalition’s newest report.
Nationwide, an estimated 35 affordable rentals are available for every 100 extremely low-income renter households — a cohort primarily made up of the elderly and low-wage workers.
In California, that number falls to just 25 rentals for every 100 residents in the lowest income tier.
Surrounding West Coast and Mountain West states fared little better in the NLIHC’s annual assessment, which also highlighted severe rental ratios farther afield in Florida and Texas.
The country’s limited affordable housing options laid out by the report are the result of wages failing to keep pace with costs and housing production failing to meet demand.
The nonprofit’s analysis of California revealed the largest deficit of deeply affordable rentals in the country.
Amending the Golden State’s dire housing problem would require roughly 982,000 new units, according to the report. The solution for this “market failure,” according to NLIHC, will require public subsidies, rather than rely on new construction.
Rents afforded by extremely low-income householders are generally too low to make ends meet for developers to invest in new builds, or for property owners to maintain existing homes.
Even for full-time workers, California’s typical rents are far out of reach. The new report based its conclusions on an average of the state’s fair-market rent, an annually calculated figure that sets out the total rent and utilities cost for 40% of an area’s rentals.
The situation in Southern California was worsened by the January 2025 wildfires, after which unscrupulous LA landlords jacked up rents by as much as 124%.
A Californian working full-time must make an hourly wage of $49.61 in order to afford a fair-market, two-bedroom rental, according to the report. In the pricey metropolitan area encompassing Santa Cruz and Watsonville, that number rises to $81.21.
The state’s minimum wage currently sits just under $17 an hour. Based on this salary, the report determined that a worker would have to clock in 98 hours a week, or work 2.4 full-time jobs, in order to afford a one-bedroom apartment at fair-market rent.
The untenable costs have been tied to the state’s massive homeless population and a growing trend of Californians living out of their vehicles — by choice or necessity.
The report documented similarly dire circumstances along the West Coast and throughout the Mountain West. In Nevada, just 16 affordable rentals area available to its lowest income residents, and 88% of that population spends more than half of its income on housing costs.
Oregon, California and Arizona follow Nevada in their relative housing shortages, followed by Texas and Florida.
The burden doesn’t sit only with the country’s lowest income brackets. An estimated 44% of California residents earning close to the area median income are spending more than 30% of that on housing.
A total of 10 states documented shortages of affordable and available rentals for residents who earn at or close to their given area median incomes.
Those states — California, Florida, Hawaii, New Jersey and New York — all host high-cost metropolitan areas.
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