Harvard reports 23.3% of Kansans severely rent burdened

TOPEKA (KSNT) - The Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies published a report on the share of renters who are cost-burdened in the Sunflower State and across the nation.

According to Harvard, renter households are more cost-burdened than ever before with a record number of people experiencing homelessness in the USA. Harvard reports those with lesser incomes are especially squeezed. In 2022, half of renter households were burdened. The share of severely burned renters also rose from 24% in 2019 to 27% in 2022.

Kansas ranked 33rd in the nation for severely burdened people in 2022. The state had a slightly lower percentage of burdened people than the rest of the country. The most burdened state was Florida which had 31.4% of its population listed as severely burdened.

	2001	2001	2019	2019	2022	2022
State	Moderately Burdened	Severely Burdened	Moderately Burdened	Severely Burdened	Moderately Burdened	Severely Burdened
United States	20.1%	20.5%	22.4%	23.9%	22.8%	26.7%
Kansas	17.3%	19.2%	21.1%	18.8%	22.9%	23.3%

In Topeka, the cost of renting a studio apartment has increased by 45% in the past decade. One-bedroom, two-bedroom, three-bedroom and four-bedroom apartments also saw the cost of rent increase almost every year for the past decade, according to data from rentdata.org.

If you need rental assistance you can reach out to the Kansas Housing Resources Corporation. The corporation offers programs to help renters avoid evictions or utility shutoffs. For more information on the resources available, click here.

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