Report: Affordable apartments are out of reach of many low-wage Maryland renters

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Maryland is among the most-challenging states for minimum wage workers to earn enough to be able to afford rent for a two-bedroom apartment, suggesting that affordable housing is “out of reach” for many low-wage renters.

That’s the conclusion of the “ Out of Reach ” report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), a housing research organization, which shows that Maryland is only behind seven states and Washington, D.C., in the 2024 ranking.

With renters making up a third of Maryland households, the lack of affordable housing has been at the forefront of many legislative discussions. Lawmakers and state officials have try to make Maryland a more renter-friendly state. But advocates say more should be done.

“We’re going to need sustained attention to this through multiple lenses,” said Claudia Randall Wilson, executive director of the Community Development Network of Maryland, noting that affordable housing impacts other societal challenges.

“So when we’re talking about improving the health of Marylanders, when we’re talking about the longevity economy and seniors and where they’re going to live – we’ve got to be thinking about housing,” she said.

But housing groups argue that they face “unavoidable costs” that lead to increasing housing costs.

“Those costs could come from a number of things,” said Aaron Greenfield, director of government affairs for the housing association for the Maryland Multi-Housing Association.

“The land, the simple foundation and framing costs, HVAC systems,” he said. “And then on top of that, for an apartment community to operate … maintenance and payroll and property taxes and insurance costs, which have gone up significantly over the last few years … which, ultimately, are passed on to the residents, unfortunately.”

The Community Development Network of Maryland partners with the NLIHC to help produce the report.

The report uses a metric called the “housing wage” to describe how much a worker would have to earn per hour in order to afford a rental home of a particular size at the fair market rent — or how many hours a week they would need to work at minimum wage to do so. To be affordable, the costs for housing and utilities must not exceed 30% of household income.

California, the least affordable state in the ranking, requires $47.38 an hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment, while North Dakota comes in last with just $18.38 an hour needed.

A two bed-room housing wage in Maryland is $36.70, or $76,345 a year. For just one bedroom the housing wage is $30.93, or $64,330 a year.

That’s well above the state’s current minimum wage of $15 an hour, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2024. The report notes that a minimum wage worker in Maryland would need to work 82 hours a week in order to afford a one-bedroom apartment.

The report said some of the state’s most common occupations do not have wages high enough to afford a one-bedroom apartment, such as janitors, home health and personal care aides, cooks, nursing assistants, security guards, secretaries and administrative assistants, construction workers and truck drivers.

“I think that those folks deserve to live with dignity in a place that they can do so,” Wilson said. “It’s very easy, with a middle-class lens, to think, ‘Oh well, they could have roommates and we shouldn’t be expecting those folks to have their own two-bedroom apartment.’ The greatest need is … families with children.”

Housing affordability was an issue at the forefront of the 2024 legislative session, when Gov. Wes Moore (D) pushed a housing package to increase the supply of affordable housing options in the state, which faces a housing shortage of an estimated 96,000 units.

Some of the housing legislation intends to incentivize  the development of new affordable housing units across the state. But just one of those bills has taken effect so far, meaning that any potential impact from new affordable housing developments as a result of the legislation are a ways off.

Wilson agrees that development is an avenue to improve the number of affordable housing options for Marylanders, but said the General Assembly will need to have “sustained attention” on affordable housing down the line.

“This is not going to be a one-year thing or two-year thing. We’re going to need sustained attention on housing,” she said.

Greenfield said the Multi-housing Association is also concerned with whether Marylanders can afford to rent.

“The reality is we’re in the business of housing people. We want people to have housing,” he said. “But we also want to make sure they get paid for that housing. To the degree that Maryland can lift up these lower-wage workers is a benefit for everyone … it’s better for our entire economy.”

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