About 200 attendees came to Lansing to hear stories of climbing rents, unsafe living conditions and organized efforts to tackle the growing cost of living in Michigan. Nationally, experts say wages are remaining stagnant as rents skyrocket.
Rent
State and local officials disbursed $1.5 billion in rental assistance during June — more than during the entire previous five months — to help households falling behind on rent and utilities, according to U.S. Treasury data released Wednesday. That progress in getting slow-moving federal dollars to struggling renters comes as the Biden administration and housing advocates have been scrambling to avoid an eviction crisis when the national moratorium expires at the end of this month.
A new report from Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan research institute, shows that 613,000 adults in Michigan — 9% of the state’s adults— say their household doesn’t have enough to eat.