over 30% (rather than 50%) of income for rent and utilities would cost more.
ger than other poor families (Shinn & Weitzman, 1996). In New York city, 53% of
mothers in families in a cohort entering shelter for the first time were pregnant or
had given birth within the previous year (Shinn et al., 1998); almost half had never
had an apartment of their own. Culhane and colleagues (unpublished papers cited
in Culhane & Lee, 1997) found that over a 1-year period, approximately 10% of
poor children under the age of five in Philadelphia and New York city stayed in a
public shelter, including 16% of poor African American children. The cost of start-
ing out in a new apartment (moving costs, first month's rent, security deposit, fur-
nishings) may be prohibitive even for people who could afford to maintain the
housing. A program of loans or assistance directed at first-time renters might per-
mit more young people to make the transition to independent housing, particularly
if such a program included work. (We are not aware of any research on such a pro-
gram.) Assistance to pregnant women and new mothers, beginning with full fund-
ing of WIC (the Women, Infant, and Children Food and Nutrition Information
Program), might also help young women weather the transition to parenthood.
First, AHS data underrepresent incomes, sometimes substantially, thus inflating the estimates of costs.
Second, actual housing costs total something more than fair-market rents, but not a great deal more. On
the other hand, homeless households are excluded from the AHS data, thus deflating the estimate.
$50 billion to $67 billion annually (as of 1992), on the assumption that units would need to be built
or rehabilitated. In areas with low vacancy rates, more new construction might be necessary. A program
to subsidize renters in existing units would, by itself, do little to ease problems of overcrowding or sub-
standard building conditions. These problems are widespread, but less severe than basic affordability
problems. According to AHS data for 1995, 82% of poor renters (representing six million households)
spent at least 30% of their income on rent and utilities, 59% spent more than half of their income, 14%
lived in housing with moderate or severe physical problems, 10% lived in overcrowded housing, and
6% were doubled up (Daskal, 1998, pp. 12, 21). These percentages overlap. Note that poor renters are
a smaller group than renters with incomes below 50% of the area median.
homeowners' tax deductions for mortgage interest alone totaled $49.1 billion. If property tax deduc-
tions, capital gains deferral, and capital gains exclusions on homes are included, homeowner deductions
totaled $90.7 billion (Dolbeare, personal communication, September 7, 1998). To put these numbers in
further perspective, note that the Interagency Council on the Homeless (1994, p. 85) observed that if the
HUD budget had increased at the rate of inflation after 1980, the department's budget authority in 1994
would have been $65 billion; HUD's actual 1994 appropriation was $26 billion. The difference would
cover the cost of subsidies to all worst-case households. For Dolbeare's graphs showing budget outlays
versus tax expenditures and the subsidies available to higher income and lower income Americans, see
http:// www.nlihc.org/bookshelf/trustfun.htm.