What our housing crisis really looks like!
Housing that working families can afford cannot be found in most areas and especially here in Sarasota County. Below are some numbers as of May 2022 to explain, but the graph above shows at different levels of income, what a person can afford for rent (in blue) and what current rents are in our area (in orange). What a person can afford is based on 1/3 of their income. That means most families are spending 50-75% or more of their income on housing.
So... let's take a single mom who makes $25 an hour with 2 small children and needs a 2-bedroom house. $25 an hour is $52,000 a year which is more than many of our first responders. The average rent for a 2-bedroom house is $2,322. What she can afford is $1,444. This means that she is spending over 50% of her Gross Income on her housing. Her taxes take another 23% of her income which means she is left with only 27% of her income or $1,170. Between her childcare costs ($400/month), car payment ($300/month), car insurance ($80/month), utilities ($150/month), phone ($40/month), and food ($300/month), she had to get a second job to cover all the costs.
We need housing at each of the levels for the local incomes so that we can keep all of our workforce and not lose them to more affordable areas.
Average rents for local housing:
Studio (no bedrooms) $1,075
1-bedroom $1,902
2-bedroom $2,322
3-bedroom $2,287
4-bedroom $3,047 Incomes and what is affordable:
$10 an hour = $20,800 annually = $577 affordable
$15 an hour = $31,200 annually = $866 affordable
$20 an hour = $41,600 annually = $1,155 affordable
$25 an hour = $52,000 annually = $1,444 affordable
$30 an hour = $62,400 annually = $1,733 affordable
$35 an hour = $72,800 annually = $2,022 affordable Clearly even at $35 an hour, a couple combined or a single mom or dad cannot afford a 2, 3, or 4-bedroom house.
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