Reasons Why

• Nearly eight in 10 Oregon families with the lowest incomes pay more than half their income for housing.

• Only one in four households with the lowest incomes in Oregon has access to existing affordable and available rental units.

• One in seven Oregonians and more than one in six children lived in poverty in 2009.

• A worker earning minimum wage in Oregon had to work more than ten hours a day, seven days a week just to afford a two bedroom apartment in Oregon.

• If the average household in a project-based Section 8 unit in Oregon had to pay the state median gross rent, they would only have $29 per month left for necessities such as food and healthcare.

• More than one in ten Oregonians were unemployed during 2010.

Source: 2011 Network for Oregon Affordable Housing