
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 19, 1990                   TAG: 9007190101
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A11   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

HOUSING OUTLOOK BLEAK FOR SOME GROUPS

The 1990s offer a bleak housing outlook for the young and the poor, while the affluent will buy bigger and more luxurious homes, housing experts said in a report issued Wednesday.

Current homeowners' investments in their houses will be protected as housing values remain stable at high levels, according to the report by Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Unless subsidies are increased and social services are improved, the poor will pay more of their income for substandard housing, home ownership will be beyond the reach of many young families, and homelessness will remain a seemingly permanent problem, the report said. Minorities will continue to be particularly disadvantaged.

Most Americans' largest investment is their home, and the report said many poor and young families are forced into a "vicious circle." Lack of wealth prevents them from buying housing, which is "the best source of wealth accumulation for the vast majority of American households."

While American families that own homes have a median income only about two-thirds higher than families that rent, the owners' median net wealth is nearly 17 times higher than that of the renters, the report said. Among black families, homeowners' income is just over one-third higher while their wealth is 51 times higher.

More than two-thirds of poor renters paid more than half of their income for rent in 1987, and the decline in low-cost housing stock is likely to push those figures higher in the '90s, the report said.

Among all renters, just one-fifth of whites and 4 percent of blacks have enough income and savings to purchase a typical starter home.

The percentage of families owning homes declined slightly in the '80s, from 65.6 percent to 64 percent, the report said. It increased for families headed by a person older than 54 and decreased for those with younger heads.

Last year, more than three-quarters of families headed by someone older than 45 owned their homes, the report said. Home ownership dropped below two-thirds in the 35-39 age bracket, just over half at 30-34, just over one-third at 25-29 and less than a fifth at younger than 25.

by CNB