Average Beaufort Co. renter needs a whopping raise to afford budget apartment, agency finds
The average Beaufort County renter would have to make $7.64 more an hour to afford a basic two-bedroom apartment without spending more than 30% of their income on rent, according to a new report from South Carolina’s housing finance and development agency.
Beaufort is one of 40 counties statewide with a gap between what renters earn hourly — $12.13 for the average Beaufort County renter — and what they need to pay their rent ($19.77) without stretching their budget too thin. Jasper County has a $2.04 gap.
On Tuesday, SC Housing released a trove of state and local statistics that underscore Beaufort County’s housing affordability crisis. The data indicate that nearly a quarter of renters around the county spend more than half their gross income on rent or have no income at all.
Anne Caywood, executive director of Lowcountry Legal Volunteers, which provides free legal assistance to low-income residents of Beaufort, Jasper and Hampton counties, said she was not surprised by the numbers.
“The pandemic just exacerbated the issues and brought it to the attention of a lot of people, which is good because it needs to be addressed,” she said. “That’s one reason why we’re here to help folks, which is a lot of people. That’s your friends and neighbors.”
In Beaufort County, 4,681 renters, or 24.6% of all renters, are severely cost burdened, spending more than half of what they make toward rent. That’s slightly worse than the statewide rate of 24%. In Jasper County, 29.6% of renters are severely cost burdened, for a total of 859 households.
The data come amid growing concerns about the end of the CDC’s eviction ban, which was extended until June 30 on Monday. The ban, put in place in September to help stop the economic devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, has not completely stopped evictions locally or nationwide, but it has prevented some. Its end will require renters months behind in rent to pay their back rent or risk getting thrown out.
Caywood said the clinic is receiving a few calls each week from people concerned about eviction, but she expects it to increase to double digits once the CDC eviction ban lapses.
Her agency didn’t typically accept eviction cases, she said. “Normally, we took cases where people were living in houses where they didn’t have heat or water. But then the housing crisis has come up with this pandemic. ... We’re ready for folks.”
Analysis of South Carolina magistrate court records shows how eviction filing rates vary widely from county to county. In Beaufort County, about one in 10 of renters in 2019 had evictions filed against them — a much lower rate than the more than one in four statewide. In Jasper County, 15.6% of renters had evictions filed against them in 2019. The assessment did not report 2020 data, it said, because of the eviction bans put in place during the pandemic.
Overall, more than 151,000 evictions were filed in South Carolina in 2019, at least a quarter — 38,411 — of which resulted in renters being ordered to leave the property. SC Housing notes that the number was most likely much higher, but about half of the records do not indicate a clear outcome.
For the full report, visit https://www.schousing.com/.
This story was originally published March 31, 2021 at 2:02 PM.
