The National Low Income Housing Coalition on March 14 released this year’s edition of The Gap, the organization’s annual assessment of national, state, and metropolitan area shortages of affordable and available housing for renters with extremely low incomes.

The U.S. has a shortage of 7.1 million rental homes affordable and available to renters with extremely low incomes, defined as incomes at or below either the federal poverty guideline or 30% of their area median income (AMI), whichever is greater.

This shortage is reflected in the fact that only 35 affordable and available rental homes exist for every 100 extremely low-income renter households. Nearly a quarter, or 10.9 million, of the 45.6 million households who rent their homes have extremely low incomes.

As renter household incomes increase, the shortage of affordable and available homes decreases. For example, nearly 5 million renters are middle-income (i.e., using the report’s definition of renter households with incomes between 81% and 100% of AMI).

Middle-income renters can afford all the homes that lower income renters can afford, plus an additional 7 million more expensive rental homes, so the total supply of affordable rental housing for middle-income renters is 41.2 million units. The report includes data on the variations of affordable and available housing by income group for renter households at the national, state, and large metropolitan area levels. Read the report here.