Rental Costs Soar In RI During Foreclosure Crisis

ERIKA NIEDOWSKI

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Nearly 40 percent of Rhode Island residents live in rented homes at a time when rental costs have soared during the foreclosure crisis, a report released Thursday finds.

HousingWorks RI, a coalition of groups that promotes affordable housing, said that about one in four Rhode Island renters pays more than half their incomes for housing.

The average cost of a three-bedroom apartment was just more than $1,500 a month in 2010, 75 percent higher than a decade earlier. The average rent for a two-bedroom unit increased 50 percent during the same time period, the report said.

Households that spend so much on housing are more likely to have difficulty purchasing food and to have a child or adult lack health care coverage, according to the report, and those with high housing costs are less likely to be able to put money away or spend on education.

Rhode Island has the highest percentage of residents of any New England state renting their homes.

Nellie Gorbea, executive director of HousingWorks, said office and administrative workers and those employed in the service and sales industries — which make up a significant portion of the state's workforce — don't earn enough to keep pace with rising rents.

"Those people are not able to afford a safe decent place to live," she said. "It will hamper our economic growth to have housing that's not affordable."

HousingWorks said the state's high foreclosure rate and its 10.8 percent unemployment rate have exacerbated the need for more public funding for affordable housing.

Affordable housing advocates sent a letter to Gov. Lincoln Chafee last month supporting a $50 million housing bond on the November ballot, saying it will help promote economic growth. Chafee, an independent, included a $25 million bond in his proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts in July.