On August 22, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released the executive summary of its 2023 Report to Congress on Worst Case Housing Needs. Households with worst case housing needs are renter households with incomes below 50% of the area median who spend more than half of their incomes for rent and/or live in severely substandard housing and do not receive any housing assistance. The vast majority of worst case housing needs households are in the former group and spend more than half of their very low incomes for their housing.

The number of worst case housing needs households increased dramatically since the last biennial report in 2021, with HUD finding 8.53 million households in the U.S. with worst case housing needs, a record high number. Compared to the last report, in 2021, worst case housing needs for older adults remained pretty steady at 40.1% of very low-income older adult renter households spending more than half of their incomes toward rent (compared to 40.3% in the 2021 report) after having increased 69% from 2009 to 2019.

In 2021, the year reflected in the 2023 report, 2.35 million older adults households had worst case housing needs. The report also finds that in 2021, only 57 affordable units (including those with rental assistance) were available for every 100 very low-income renter households (with incomes below 50% of area median). Only 36 affordable units were available for every 100 extremely low-income renter households (with incomes below 30% of area median), the report found. Extremely low-income households make up 71% of all worst case needs households, according to HUD.

LeadingAge uses these and other data to advocate for the expansion and preservation of affordable senior housing.