Gary’s Housing Crisis

1 day ago
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A recent 2026 Gap Report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) has brought clarity and urgency to housing challenges across the United States. It offers the most up‑to‑date picture of the widening gap between what households earn and what housing costs, and the solutions now required.

For Indiana, the study only confirms what Gary residents have long known: our housing crisis is not simply a matter of rising rents or aging buildings. It is the result of structural shortages, decades of underbuilding, and the steady loss of deeply affordable homes, especially those once provided through public housing and the private market. These actions, combined with inaction on replacement housing, have intensified the affordability crisis.

“In Indiana, only 34 rental homes are affordable and available

for every 100 extremely low-income (ELI) households.”

And:

“A full-time worker must earn $22.18/hour to afford the average Fair

Market Rent for a two-bedroom rental home.”

Collectively:

There is a 138,137 housing-unit deficit for ELI households
84% of ELI households are in the labor force, are seniors, or have a disability
74% of ELI renters are severely cost-burdened
A minimum-wage worker must work 122 hours/week to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment

Gary’s Housing Deficits

The NIRPC 2050+ Land Use chapter provides the clearest picture of Gary’s housing availability challenges, which are contributing to our affordability challenges. The final column of the table, Balance, shows the available surplus or deficit of units affordable to each income level.

For households earning $0–25,000, Gary has 12,358 households but only 10,671 affordable units, leaving a deficit of 1,687 units.
Households earning $50,000–74,999 face a deficit of 2,499 units, with only 2,179 units affordable to 4,678 households.
The deepest deficits are at the bottom and middle of the income distribution.

This ELI structural shortage was worsened by the demolition of over 1,300 public housing units over the last decade+ due to "physical obsolescence". While the following list is not all-inclusive, note the numbers of demolished units per housing development reported in news sources:

Ivanhoe Gardens – 316 units
Delaney West & Community East – 519 units
Colonial Gardens – 156 units
Dorie Miller Homes – 291 units
Concord Village 3 – 27 units

As displaced residents were issued Section 8 vouchers for the private market, investors began using Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC) to aggressively acquire privately owned market-rate apartment complexes, convert them into HUD-assisted or income-restricted housing, and raise rents. In the reshuffling, households without Section 8 vouchers and whose incomes were too high to qualify for HUD rental assistance were squeezed out. These actions have contributed to even higher percentages of low-income households experiencing severe housing cost burdens as housing shortages have driven up rents.

Combined with the City of Gary’s housing demolition blitzes, the cumulative impact of removing deeply affordable public housing units without replacement has only accelerated the crisis.

Why the Market Alone Can't Fix This

The NLIHC Gap Report explains the structural reason:

“The rents these households can afford are generally too

low to support new construction or maintain existing housing.”

This means:

The private market cannot produce units affordable to ELI households.
Older units that once served low-income renters are being demolished faster than they are replaced.
Middle-income households facing housing deficits compete downward for lower-cost units, intensifying shortages for the lowest-income renters.

What Gary Needs

Gary’s housing crisis is the result of long-term underbuilding, the loss of affordable housing units, a mismatch between incomes and available housing, rising costs, stagnant wages, and a tightening regional market. But the data also shows a path forward: Gary needs new housing solutions that match the city’s actual income distribution. This includes:

Deeply affordable units (0–30% AMI); the largest deficits are here.
Replacement housing for demolished public units; cleared lots must become homes again.
Preservation of existing low-cost units to prevent further erosion of the affordable stock.
Rental assistance expansion, because wages will not catch up to rents.
Mixed-income development that fits Gary’s income profiles, not just LIHTC units below 60% AMI.
Infill development and adaptive reuse to increase the number of housing units available to middle- and higher-income households.

With targeted investment, strategic redevelopment, and a commitment to replacing lost units, Gary can rebuild its housing supply to meet the needs of its residents at every income level.

Take action to help end the housing and homelessness crisis at nlihc.org/take-action.