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Appendix E: Affordability and Displacement Everett Housing Action Plan E-6 <br />Examining Cost Burdens for Renters <br />Looking specifically at the cost burdens that renters are experiencing across different income levels can <br />characterize a significant source of the displacement risk in the community. Drawing from the same US <br />HUD information, Figure 4 compares the following: <br />The proportion of renters in Snohomish County by individual income categories (e.g., moderate, <br />low, very low, extremely low) <br />The proportion of renters in Everett within the same income categories <br />The proportion of the total supply of rental housing that is affordable at specific income <br />categories (e.g., with rents at 30% or below of the total income in this income group) <br />This information highlights a few major points. First, while the proportion of low-income households is <br />the same for Everett and the County overall, there are fewer moderate-income households and more <br />very low- and extremely low-income households in comparison. This suggests that Everett generally <br />may have a more affordable rental housing stock than a lot of other communities in Snohomish <br />County. <br />More importantly, however, is that the proportion of the rental unit stock that is affordable to <br />extremely low-income households is very limited. Only 12% of the stock is affordable to these <br />households, which account for 32% of the renters in the city. This means that many of these <br />households are facing significant cost burdens to meet their needs and will typically “uprent”, or rent <br />less affordable housing to meet their needs. <br />Conversely, there is the opposite issue for higher-income households. While 30% of households are at <br />moderate income or higher (80% AMI or more), only 9% of housing is affordable specifically at this <br />price range. With a larger proportion of housing affordable at 50–80% AMI, this suggests that many of <br />these households are in fact renting housing that results in costs significantly lower than 30% of their <br />income. Households that “downrent” will have significantly less housing cost burdens, but in many <br />cases, they may be taking up units that could be occupied by lower-income households. <br />Breaking this down further, rental cost burdens by income level are given in Figures 5 and 6, with <br />Figure 5 providing counts of households while Figure 6 giving percentages of the households in each <br />income group. This indicates more clearly that the housing cost burdens are not evenly distributed by <br />household income. <br />While nearly half of households are cost burdened, any type of housing cost burden is extremely <br />limited for households above moderate income or even moderate income. For these households, only <br />1% of above median and 8% of moderate-income households pay more than 30% of their income on <br />housing. <br />At the other end of the spectrum, however, nearly 61% of extremely low-income households making <br />less than 30% AMI are paying more than half their income on rent, with 78% experiencing some <br />housing cost burdens. For very low-income households, 79% experience some cost burdens, while 21% <br />are severely cost burdened.