While overall housing production ticked up a bit in 2022, Greater Washington has continued to produce little to no housing affordable to residents with the lowest-paying jobs, particularly in its suburban counties and cities.
That’s one of the glaring takeaways from an updated Housing Indicator Tool, published Tuesday by the Housing Association of Nonprofit Developers, or HAND, a D.C.-based nonprofit membership association.
Out of more than 25,000 units built in 2022 regionwide, only 235 had contractual rent caps for households earning below 30% of the area median income — a commonly accepted threshold delineating the very lowest income tranche, corresponding to necessary jobs like cashiers, retail salespeople, restaurant and coffee shop hosts and hostesses, hard-up entrepreneurs and so forth.
