2015 Housing Matters Survey Finds Americans Still Anxious About Housing

The 2015 How Housing Matters Survey, commissioned by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, finds that many people think that the country has not moved past the housing crisis and that housing affordability is a serious problem.

This is the third annual national survey of housing attitudes conducted by Hart Research Associates commissioned by the MacArthur Foundation. Hart Research Associates interviewed 1,401 adults between April 27 and May 5, 2015. The survey examines public perceptions about housing in the aftermath of the housing crisis.

Sixty-one percent of respondents feel that the housing crisis is not over, with 41% thinking that the nation is in the middle of the housing crisis while 20% think that the worst is yet to come. This is an improvement over public sentiment in 2014 when (70%) and 2013 (77%) thought that the nation was still in a housing crisis.

According to the survey, 55% of the public made tradeoffs over the past three years in order to afford their rent or mortgage. For example, 21% took on an additional job, 17% did not save for retirement, 14% accumulated credit card debt, and 12% cut back on nutritious food. These tradeoffs were most common among renters (73%), Hispanics (68%), and African Americans (62%). Further, 58% think that finding affordable rental housing is a challenge.

Sixty percent of the respondents think that there is a housing affordability problem nationwide, with 36% considering the problem very serious and 24% viewing it as fairly serious. In addition, half of all adults would like Congress to treat affordable housing as a very (27%) or fairly (22%) high priority. Yet, only 14% think that elected officials treat housing as a high priority.

How Housing Matters Survey is at http://www.macfound.org/media/files/E-11540_How_Housing_Matters_2015_FULL_REPORT.pdf