“Housing and hunger are two of the biggest issues plaguing vulnerable children across our country.” – Quoted from Children’s HealthWatch

Rent over food: families sacrifice essentials to stay housed.

  • According to a 2024 Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies report, 22.4 million renter households in the United States spent more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities in 2024, a record high. 45% of lower-income renter households who were behind on rent experienced food insufficiency (Joint Center for Housing Studies, 2024).
  • Families with low-income housing often face the “heat or eat” dilemma in winter months. In a National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA) survey, 33% of households reported going without food to pay for rent and heating bills (NEADA, 2018).
  • “In 1996, Congress capped the amount of housing costs that a family can deduct from gross income in figuring out what share of food costs the family can pay without Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s (SNAP) help. The reduced deduction means the SNAP allotment shrinks by assuming the family can use some of its income for food when in fact that money is owed to the landlord. As housing costs have risen in the two decades since Congress made this cut, this cap on the shelter deduction has meant SNAP allotment inadequacy has become a far deeper and broader problem.” Quoted from Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), 2019
  • More than half of the 46.5 million clients that Feeding America serves make the difficult choice between paying for housing or food (Urban Institute, 2019).
  • Many low-income residents live in underinvested neighborhoods in need of revitalization, particularly places experiencing high amounts of vacancy and blight. When families lack mobility in and around a neighborhood, they end up living farther from good schools, health care providers, employment opportunities, and healthy, affordable food (Urban Institute, 2019).
  • “Food-insecure and low-income people can be especially vulnerable to poor nutrition and obesity, due to additional risk factors associated with inadequate household resources as well as under-resourced communities. This might include lack of access to healthy and affordable foods; cycles of food deprivation and overeating; high levels of stress, anxiety, and depression; fewer opportunities for physical activity; greater exposure to marketing of obesity-promoting products; and limited access to health care (Hartline-Grafton, 2015).” Quoted from FRAC, Hunger and Health

Access to affordable housing leads to greater food security for households.

  • Data from the US Household Pulse Survey (2022-2023) showed that emergency allotments for SNAP and rental assistance were linked to greater food sufficiency and helped households stay current on rent. The effects of SNAP allotments were stronger for rent-burdened households, while rent assistance had a more significant impact on food sufficiency and rent payments for non-rent-burdened households (National Institute of Health, 2024). To maximize impact, SNAP emergency allotments and rental assistance programs should be coordinated to better address the specific needs of rent-burdened households with low incomes.
  • A study published in the National Library of Medicine found that families experiencing rent burden have nearly three times the odds of food insecurity compared to those not rent burdened (National Library of Medicine, 2024).
  • One study found that children in subsidized housing had a 28 percent lower risk of being seriously underweight than children in families waitlisted for subsidized housing (DC Fiscal Policy Institute, 2024).
  • The combination of housing subsidies with nutrition benefits improves housing security. Housing subsidies are critically important for ensuring low income families are “housing secure” (as defined by experiencing overcrowding or frequent moves in the previous year). Low income families receiving housing subsidies in combination with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Women, Infants and Children (WIC) benefits were 72% more likely to be housing secure than those receiving housing subsidies alone (FRAC, 2019).