Jacob Vaughn
Audio By Carbonatix
Four out of 10 families making 50% of the area median income, $52,000 or less for a family of four, struggled to find housing they could afford in Dallas last year, according to a report released by the Child Poverty Action Lab this month.
Dallas has long struggled to maintain an affordable housing supply that meets demand, and the gap has only grown since 2023, when the nonprofit began tracking the local rental market. To meet demand, Dallas needs 46,000 more rental units priced for households making 50% of the area’s median income.
Even as monthly rental prices have begun to cool in Dallas overall, that relief hasn’t been felt by the city’s most financially strained, and renting in Dallas is harder than ever. The report found that nearly 60% of Dallasites are renters, and half of those renters are spending more than 30% of their monthly income on housing.
Affordable Housing Shortages Affect Marginalized Communities Most
Renters who are Black, Latino, seniors or parents are the most likely to experience that cost burden. The Southern sector, along with northeast Dallas’ District 10, experiences the highest cost burden across the city.
“It’s hard to be a renter in Dallas,” Ashley Flores, CPAL’s housing chief, told the Texas Tribune. “We have a serious shortage of affordable rental units for very low-income households.”
Households representing some of Dallas’ poorest families spend the largest portion of their wages on housing. Families of four that earn $31,000 or less annually spend, on average, 78% of their monthly income on housing. That leaves only $567 per month for all other expenses, the report states.
Those are the renters who, year after year, are likely having a harder time finding housing that suits their budgets. In the last two years, Dallas lost 12,000 affordable units for very low-income renters. As it stands now, there are just 23 affordable units for every 100 households at or below that $31,000 threshold. That is reflected in Dallas’ population data; In just the last decade, Dallas has lost 61,000 families earning less than $35,000 annually. That may be because some have recorded wage increases, but it may also reflect families being priced out of town.
Cheap rents are also becoming a thing of Dallas’ past. Between 2021 and 2023, 50% of rental units priced below $1,000 a month disappeared. That amounts to 51,000 fewer affordable units on the Dallas market, a figure that Flores described as “staggering.”
“I think my jaw hit the floor on that one,” she said.
Dallas’ supply shortage isn’t due to a lack of development, the report points out. In 2024, 8,395 new multifamily units came onto the Dallas market. Of those new units, 16% were approved by the city, with restrictions that cap rents at a certain level.
