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[May 08, 2011] Area is still tough to afford Tweet NORWALK, May 04, 2011 (The Hour - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- The Stamford-Norwalk region continues to be one of the most expensive places to rent housing in the country. According to the annual Out of Reach report released this week, a person must earn $34.83 an hour to afford the rent for a modest two-bedroom apartment in the Stamford-Norwalk area. The report, issued by the Connecticut Housing Coalition in coordination with the National Low Income Housing Coalition, defined "housing wage" as the amount a person must earn to afford a typical two-bedroom apartment, without spending more than 30 percent of total household income on housing costs. The Stamford-Norwalk area trailed only San Francisco in rental affordability and surpased metro areas such as New York, Boston and Honolulu. The report, according to the Coalition, concludes that full-time work does not provide enough income for many families to afford a modest apartment. A person earning the state's minimum wage of $8.25 per hour must work 4.2 full-time jobs to afford the Stamford-Norwalk area's fair market rent of $1,811 per month for a two-bedroom apartment. In terms of annual income, an area household must earn $72,440 a year to afford a typical two-bedroom rental. Connecticut ranked as the sixth least affordable state in terms of rental housing. The rent for a two-bedroom rental in the state increased 55 percent since 2000. The Coalition, using data from the Connecticut Department of Labor, found that more than half of the state's occupations do not provide an income sufficient to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment. "The report estimates that 62 percent of all renters in Connecticut, or 251,283 households, cannot reasonably afford a two-bedroom apartment at the fair market rent," Betsy Crum, executive director of the Connecticut Housing Coalition, said in a statement. "While rents have grown only slightly since last year, average hourly wages have gone down by more than 11 percent." To see more of The Hour or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.thehour.com/. Copyright (c) 2011, The Hour, Norwalk, Conn. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For more information about the content services offered by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services (MCT), visit www.mctinfoservices.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]