What is affordable housing?
In conversations about affordable housing, you will often hear the term "AMI" which stands for Area Median Income. AMI is the median income, adjusted for household size, within a given statistical area, updated annually by the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD), and used to determine what households can access most affordable housing assistance programs.
Low-to-Moderate Income (LMI) refers to a gross annual household income at or below 80% of the area median income (AMI). It includes the household income subsets that are a specific focus of U-CHAN: very low-income (<=50% AMI) and extremely low-income (<=30% AMI).
Another common term related to housing affordability is "cost-burdened" which is defined as households that spend more than 30% of income on housing costs. Households that spend more than 50% of income on housing are “severely cost burdened.”
Did you know?
In Newton, 10%, 6.8%, and 6.2% of households are extremely low, very low, and low income, respectively. This means that 23% of all households qualify for federal and state affordable housing programs based on household income.
Source: Metropolitan Area Planning Council.
32% and 15% of households in Newton are cost burdened and severely cost burdened, respectively, compared to 29% and 14% of households statewide.
Source: Metropolitan Area Planning Council.
A Newton family of 4 at 50% AMI (very low-income) has a gross annual income of $74,200.