MHP’s New County Profiles Show Pervasive Lack of Affordable Rental Housing

county profiles thumb12MHP’s 2012 County Profiles, released earlier this week, contain some startling facts when it comes to housing in Minnesota. The profiles find:

    • 94% of Minnesota’s 87 counties lack sufficient affordable rental housing for extremely low income residents.
    • The average food preparation or retail sales worker will fall more than $10,000 short of being able to afford decent, safe housing along with other basic needs.
    • 18% of Minnesotans owe more on their mortgage than what their home is worth, and 71 (or 82%) of 87 counties still have lower median home sales prices than in 2006.

map affordable eli mnMHP’s County Profiles pull together housing data for each of Minnesota’s counties—including cost and affordability for owners and renters, changes in home prices, foreclosures, homelessness, and unemployment.

To find out more and to see how your county stacks up, click hereYou can view the press release, summary findings, and each county’s profile, along with this year’s charts and maps. These charts and maps help show which counties have the most severe shortage of affordable rental units, and where home prices fell the most between 2006 and 2011.

Let us know how you will use the County Profiles to support your work in making “Homes for All” a reality in the comments.