01:00 AM EDT on Monday, August 30, 2004

A recent study of housing affordability in Rhode Island underscores the depth of the problem residents face. More than three-quarters of Ocean State jobs do not pay well enough to buy a home at the state's median price, which has been inching toward $200,000. And renters face high hurdles: The average rent for a two-bedroom unit skyrocketed from $663 in 2000 to $989 three years later.

In community after community, Rhode Islanders in hosts of occupations must stretch to cover housing costs. For some 97,000 households, nearly a fourth of the total, rent or mortgage payments claim more than a third of all income, the conventional standard for affordability. These figures, along with much more detailed data, have been compiled by a consultant for two housing groups, the Woonsocket Neighborhood Development Corporation and the Housing Network of Rhode Island.

The picture is scarcely better in Massachusetts, where high housing costs have been threatening the business climate. In fact, Bay State residents in search of affordable homes have been moving by the thousands to Rhode Island, placing upward pressure on prices, according to a March report by the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council. The most worrisome of RIPEC's findings is that income growth in Rhode Island is simply failing to keep up with housing costs.

Under recently enacted affordable-housing legislation, Rhode Island's cities and towns are laying plans to expand the housing stock. Yet the latest report, which looks at need, says that even these efforts will not be enough: It notes that the state will require 37,000 new units by 2010.

As elsewhere in the nation, New England's housing challenges cannot be met by state efforts alone. The Bush administration recently touted record home-ownership rates. But what it did not mention was that the hike was largely among the well-off, and mainly due to historically low interest rates. Home-ownership rates for low- and moderate-income working families with children have actually fallen

since the 1970s, according to the Center for Housing Policy, from 62.5 percent to 56.6 percent. The rate has declined even for two-earner families.

At the least, the federal government should be expanding its Section 8 voucher program, which helps low-income citizens cover rent. Instead, the White House has pulled back on the program. Meanwhile, the ranks of the impoverished have swelled again for the third straight year.

With tax breaks benefiting the rich far more than aspiring moderate-income home owners, and with a still-mounting federal deficit bumping up interest rates, don't look for much relief on the affordable-housing front soon. The states will have to make do.