Beyond affordability, persistent discrimination burdens Blacks, other consumers of color
By Charlene Crowell
An annual research report, considered by many to be the country’s best barometer on housing issues, makes clear that in 2026, affordability is not the only housing crisis confronting Black America.
The State of the Nation’s Housing 2026, newly released by Harvard’s Joint Center on Housing Studies, makes clear that the financial anxiety nearly all consumers suffer from housing cost burdens is but one of many dimensions to a national crisis affecting consumers, business, and government alike.
Over the past year, the future of fair housing has been the focus of increased advocacy. From federal funding and staff cutbacks to policy reversals, and lawsuits challenging these moves, Blacks and other people of color have sensed that many of the hard-fought battles of the 1960s face extinction.
“The US faces interlocking housing crises—affordability, homelessness, climate change, and discrimination— that demand coordinated action across federal, state, local, private, and nonprofit actors,” states the report. “Discrimination in the housing market persists, but the tools to fight it are deteriorating. Obligations to “affirmatively further fair housing” (AFFH) have been weakened by recent federal rollbacks that replace structured planning requirements with general commitments.”
During the 2025 government shutdown, about a third of the 300 HUD employees laid off were people who investigated fair housing complaints. Combined with resignations earlier in the year, the remaining fair housing staff is estimated to have decreased by about two-thirds. But over the last 10 years, the number of fair housing complaints has risen 20 percent, according to the National Fair Housing Alliance.
While about one in five (22 percent) of white homeowners are cost burdened – each month spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing – disproportionately higher costs are borne by homeowners who are also people of color. Racially, Black homeowners suffer the largest burden at 32 percent, followed by Latinos (29 percent), Asians (27 percent), and Native American (25 percent).
The report also found that:
For the fifth straight year, the median sales price for an existing single-family home hovered near five times the median household income. Since 2020, home prices have increased by 54 percent nationwide and more than 50 percent in 73 of the nation’s 100 largest markets.
The median price of a new single-family home was $417,400 in 2025. At this price, a household needs an income of roughly $120,000 to meet the threshold, assuming a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, 6.0 percent interest rate, and 3.5 percent downpayment.
Home prices are declining in an increasing number of markets. Prices fell year over year in 41 of the nation’s 100 largest markets in February 2026, compared with 9 markets in 2025.
Even so, the median age for owner-occupied homes rose to 42 in 2024, compared to 33 years of age in 2010.
These affordability challenges seep into the rental market as well. The median price for newly built units in 2025 was $1,900 per month. Additionally, by the first quarter of 2026, asking rents for professionally managed apartments had risen 29 percent since 2020, outpacing non-housing inflation.
“The existing stock of low-rent housing is shrinking rapidly, and private markets are incapable of producing enough deeply affordable units,” said Alexander Hermann, senior research associate at the Center. “The number of units renting for under $1,000 a month in real terms fell by more than 7 million between 2014 and 2024, while higher-rent units surged. Without significant new subsidies and stronger protections for at-risk properties, we risk losing even more of the limited affordable stock that remains.”
Other factors heighten overall housing costs while diminishing funds for other living needs. For example, the report cites the ICE Mortgage Monitor report for March 2026 that found property taxes rose 31 percent nationwide between 2019 and 2025. Also in 2025, 23 weather and climate-related disasters affected more than 72 million homes nationwide. Additionally, between 2019 and 2025, increased insurance costs added on average $2,412 per year or $201 per month to family budgets.
“Across the country, we see governors, mayors, and local leaders stepping up with creative solutions to expand supply and support vulnerable households,” said Chris Herbert, managing director of the Center. “But these efforts are patchwork and often precariously funded.
“Only the federal government has the scale and staying power necessary to close the gap between what our housing system produces and what our lowest-income households can afford. Without a more robust national response, we risk deepening inequities and entrenching housing instability for millions,” concluded Herbert.
