South Hampton Roads has a housing crisis.
The area includes the cities of Suffolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Norfolk, and Virginia Beach in Virginia
With a metro population nearly 1.2 million on the southside, how much housing do we need?
From January through March, McCormick told WAVY News there were 811 evictions in Norfolk.
Today, ForKids Housing specialists found just 60 units available for rent under $1,000 a month in ALL of the Southside cities.
https://www.wavy.com/video/as-richmond-declares-housing-crisis-what-will-hampton-roads-do/
I'd be highly surprised if these available units weren't mostly Section 8 housing. That's a whole other rat's nest that I wouldn't wish on most people.
In general, the ongoing affordable housing crisis is nationwide. It reeks of the Haves v. the Have Nots, and the latter can't take much more. How much longer until there is a full blown class war?
Yes, cost of living also far exceeds any given area's perceived living wage, nationwide. One would, though, absolutely *ahem* deficate a rectangular masonry block to know that some areas of the US don't even have laws regarding minimum habitability standards for rentals. It's a scary, rage-inducing time indeed, for the Have Nots.
@fugitive247 The crazy thing is that here, to qualify for income restriction housing, households must earn either less than 50% or 60% of the area median income. To qualify for an apt, a single person can't make more than $39,000. It's like they know that$18.75/hr is still not enough to afford a regular apartment. And yet so many businesses pay less than that.