| Abstract: | ![]()
The conventional percent-of-income standard of housing affordability is challenged as arbitrary and logically inconsistent. An alternative, sliding scale of affordability is conceptualized; households paying more than they can afford on this standard are called "shelter poor." The shelter-pover scale is operationalized for elderly households of one person an two or more persons and applied to data from the 1985 American Housing Survey. It is found that 31% of all elderly households were shelter poor in 1985, compared with 45% paying 25% or more of their incomes for housing. The shelter-poverty approach suggests that the housing affordability problem is less severe among middle-income elders than the conventional standard implies, but more severe among low-income elderly. Some of the policy implications of the findings are briefly sketched, in terms of income supports as well as housing provision. |
