People are at the core of NPH’s work – people who need decent, affordable homes in which to raise families and live healthy, productive lives. In the Bay Area, the continued high price of housing and other living expenses coupled with stagnant real wages have made the simple need for a stable home that is affordable out of reach for an increasing number of people.

Consider the following:

• The American Dream is impossible for many: The Bay Area has one of the lowest home-ownership rates in the nation due to the high cost of housing.
  
  
• Salaries are not keeping pace with housing prices: A minimum wage earner must work 141 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco. In relatively affordable Solano County, that same worker still must put in 99 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom apartment.
  
  
• It’s not just minimum wage workers and those on fixed incomes: The market-rate rents for apartments and high home prices mean that school teachers, child care workers, nurses, and other professionals are also paying too much of their earnings on housing.

NPH members build a range of affordable homes – rental, homeownership – for a range of incomes –
very low-, low-, and moderate-income households – and a range of needs – senior housing, family housing, service enhanced housing for the disabled, youth transitional housing. Ensuring that there is housing at many different levels of affordability is key to addressing the affordable housing crisis.