Rental costs rising beyond reach in Nashville
By
Warren Duzak
11 January 2018
Rent increases that have made life almost impossible for working class families nationwide are a serious problem in Nashville, Tennessee. The rise in rental costs, which out-distance incremental increases in wages, can be traced to the financial feeding frenzy of investors, hedge fund operators and real estate speculators following the 2008 crash.
“Locals complain that the rents are taking a bigger bite out of their paychecks,” the Wall Street Journal reported, as far back as 2014, on rent increases in Nashville.
The real human costs—homelessness, lack of money for food, clothes and heat—were trivialized under the headline, “Nashville rent increases have residents singing the blues.”
“While apartment rents are up 18% since 2009,” the newspaper reported, “median household income in the Nashville metro area has grown by 5%, to $53,671, according to Moody’s Analytics. More than half of renter households in the Nashville metro area are considered cost-burdened, meaning they pay more than 30% of their income to rent.”
In its January 8 story, “Rising rents put low income US renters in severe jeopardy,” the WSWS outlined the plight of renters nationwide. “A December report on the housing crisis that appeared in a publication of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve, called FEDS Notes, reports on the distress for families in the lowest US income quintile brought on by a squeeze in monthly income from rising rents and stagnant or falling wages.
“In general, these families earn under $25,000 annually. The lowest-paid fifth of US households includes workers making more than minimum wage (and) rent increases have rapidly and relentlessly outstripped stagnant or…