Understanding Housing in Houston

Access to affordable and safe housing is critical to the health, quality of life, and well-being of all residents.

Hundreds of thousands of Houston-area residents face housing insecurities, vulnerabilities, and inequities. Many of our neighbors are burdened by housing costs and economic insecurity, and they have been negatively impacted by multiple devastating disasters.

The cost of housing in Houston’s three-county region has soared in recent years – especially for renters. Households burdened by housing costs typically have lower access to resources to navigate through and recover from external crises and threats such as weather-related disasters or economic shocks, which can often lead to housing damage, overcrowding, eviction, and homelessness. As a result, homeownership rates remain flat from a decade ago and has become increasingly unaffordable for would-be first-time homebuyers. Moreover, racial/ethnic disparities in homeownership across Houston’s three-county area have worsened in the last decade. This is problematic because homeownership remains a critical pathway to building wealth — the kind that is financially compounded and passed to future generations — among the main drivers of our nation’s massive wealth gap.

The more we understand affordable, safe, and stable housing as a basic need, the more we can do to ensure quality housing options are available for people across our region to keep our communities healthy and vibrant.