Indicators 2023: Housing costs weigh heavily on renters, homeowners

WILKES-BARRE — Jill Avery-Stoss, Chief Operating Officer at The Institute for Public Policy and Economic Development, this week said it is clear that the pandemic accelerated the tightening of the labor market.

According to Avery-Stoss, that trend continued through 2022.

“Home values in Northeastern Pennsylvania saw more growth from 2019 to 2022 than the entire previous decade,” Avery-Stoss said. “Lackawanna, Luzerne, and Wayne Counties saw home values increase by 37%, 42%, and 65%, respectively. These rates surpassed the statewide rate of 35%.”

Avery-Stoss said for-sale inventory dropped steadily between the first quarter of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021. It shifted upward in late 2021, but fell again in early 2022. It remained below pre-pandemic levels throughout the rest of the year. A similar trend emerged nationwide.

“Of course, market rents have also risen, with mid-market rent increasing by 33% in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metro area from 2019 to 2022,” added Avery-Stoss. “That is also faster than the significant growth rate of 25% observed statewide.”

Housing tenure refers to the breakdown of those who own their homes versus those who rent. Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties have seen a gradual shift away from home-ownership.

The shares of renters grew from 31% to 32% in Luzerne County and from 33% to 35% in Lackawanna County over each period analyzed in The Institute’s 2023 Indicators Report. Statewide, the share of renters is just under 31%, a minimal decline from the prior five-year period but larger than it was a decade ago.

In each of these areas, the ratio of income to housing costs for renters has consistently been less favorable than the ratio for homeowners.

“In other words, renters tend to be more financially burdened than homeowners,” Avery-Stoss stated. “In either case, it is important to emphasize the need for new efforts to ensure access to affordable housing. Further, the concept of affordable housing should not be limited to subsidized housing. This concept also includes people who work in a variety of roles – such as teachers, healthcare providers, and police officers – and struggle to make ends meet.”

Avery-Stoss said the subject of homelessness belongs in all discussions of housing burden.

Homelessness data is tracked annually via point-in-time counts reported to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Count procedures in 2021 were altered due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since then, some data has been limited — in particular, data on shelter status is incomplete and thus the total number of unhoused individuals does not include all those unsheltered at the time of the count.

Data is reported by Continuum of Care regions across Pennsylvania. These include Lackawanna County, Luzerne County, and the Eastern Pennsylvania Continuum of Care, which is composed of 33 primarily rural counties.

Statewide, Avery-Stoss said the number of sheltered homeless households fell in January 2021. This may also be related to the eviction moratorium or other supports preventing some vulnerable households from becoming homeless.

In 2022, the number in emergency shelter rose, though the number who were counted as unsheltered remained lower than levels seen from 2017 to 2020.

The percent of homeless households that were sheltered in either transitional or emergency housing has typically ranged from about 90% to 95% in Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties, from 82% to 86% statewide, and from 73% to 84% in the Eastern PA CoC region.