America’s housing shortage continues to put affordable homes out of reach for people across the country — from small towns to big cities.

While West Virginia has the nation’s highest level of homeownership overall, many residents still struggle to find something that works for their budget. In fact, nearly 140,000 West Virginians spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs. 

In this episode of Us & Them, host Trey Kay looks at the squeeze in two places—Philadelphia and southern West Virginia—finding that while inventory has improved, costs remain well above pre-pandemic levels and even manufactured homes, once an entry point for many, are slipping out of reach.

This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the West Virginia Humanities Council and the CRC Foundation.Subscribe to Us & Them on Apple Podcasts, NPR One, RadioPublic, Spotify, Stitcher and beyond.

“Housing became really important during the pandemic … not only because we were home all the time and working from home, but because housing itself was suddenly at stake in a way it hadn’t been. People who were doing fine before were still doing fine—many even did better with stimulus checks and the homeownership boom, as rising values benefited those with assets. But on the other side of the spectrum, the pandemic hit service workers hard. Many of them are renters, and suddenly they had no income; they couldn’t pay rent and had to ask, ‘Can I stay in my home another month?’”

— Claudia Aiken, director, Housing Initiative, University of Pennsylvania

“A lot of people genuinely believe housing costs are out of control … and that if you want to rein them in, you need to allow more homes to be built — the market has a role to play. … Opposition and support don’t line up neatly with left-right politics: some folks are NIMBY (not in my backyard) for explicitly right-wing reasons — they don’t want apartments in exclusionary suburbs because they associate them with lower-income residents or crime … while others are NIMBY or anti-YIMBY (yes in my backyard) from the left because they fear development will raise land values and rents, putting people at risk of displacement. … You’ll see people oppose development because it might lower property values, and you’ll also see opposition because it might raise property values — and therefore property taxes — especially in a city like Philadelphia, where there’s a high rate of lower-income Black homeownership.” 

— Taylor Kessinger

“I think they call it ‘renoviction’, where they decide to renovate the building. And that's a way that they push people out is by saying, ‘Look, we have added this amenity, or we have fixed the doors, we have painted,’ or something like that. ‘And now, because we painted, we have to raise the rent by $500 a month,’ which for a lot of people living there wasn't really affordable.”

— Ron Whyte

“These are people who can’t fight for themselves … who may not be sophisticated enough to know what to ask for from a billion-dollar, out-of-state corporation with tons of lawyers.” 

— Adam Wolfe, Mountain State Justice