About half of Americans, 49%, say the availability of affordable housing in their community is a major problem, an increase of 10 percentage points from early 2018, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey.
Concerns about the availability of affordable housing are outpacing worries about other local issues. The percentage of adults who say this is a major problem where they live is larger than the shares who say the same about drug addiction (35%), the economic and health impacts of COVID-19 (34% and 26%, respectively), and crime (22%).
While a rising share of U.S. adults say affordable housing is a major issue, 36% say affordable housing availability is a minor problem in their community, while just 14% say it is not a problem, according to the survey conducted last October.
About a year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic, there is also some evidence that people are more likely to want to live in the suburbs and less likely to want to live in the cities, according to the Pew Research center study.
The share of Americans who want to live in the suburbs has increased to 46% from 42% in 2018 while about 1 in 5 adults prefer to live in a city, down from about a quarter, finds the survey.
In another finding, 77% say the pandemic has divided people in the country as a whole.
