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F amily housing Fund PUBLIC Education Initiative W orking Doesn’t Always P ay For A Home Updated Information OCTOBER, 2004 For many years the Twin Cities area enjoyed a strong economy and expanding job base. Housing costs rose sharply, and even a full-time job did not guarantee access to affordable housing. Today the economy has slowed, yet the cost of a single-family home continues to rise. Rents have stabilized, but at a level still far out of reach for many working families. A typical two-bedroom apartment in the metro area rents for $930 per month, and a modest two-to-three- bedroomhousesellsforapproximately $189,000. Ahome is usually consid- ered to be affordable if a family pays no more than 30 percent of its income in housing costs. Any more than this, and families often must cut back on other necessities such as food and clothing. By the 30 percent measure, a family would have to earn $37,200 per year ($17.88 per hour) to afford to rent a two-bedroom apartment or $59,000 per year ($28.37 per hour) to afford to buy a modest single-family house. More than half the jobs in Minnesota pay less than $31,000. Households with only one full- time wage earner, such as single-par- ent families or families in which one parent doesn’t work outside the home, face particular difficulty find- ing an affordable home. However, even households with two family members working full-time in jobs that pay up to $8.75 an hour ($18,200/year) cannot afford the typi- cal two-bedroom apartment or three- bedroom house. The need for affordable housing for working families is especially acute in communities with many low-to-moderate wage jobs but few lower-priced apartments and houses. Many developing suburbs fit this description, but most affordable hous- ing is concentrated in the center cities and first-ring suburbs. As a result, while many workers earning low and moderate wages are provid-ing essen- tial services for residents of local communities—child care, food serv- ice, or health care, for example—they often are priced out of housing inthecommunitiesinwhichtheywork. The following graphs and table show what people in different profes- sions can afford to pay for housing and what homes for families actually cost.