This week, the Utah Housing Coalition is raising the alarm — again. And this time, the warning is louder and more urgent than ever.
The newly released Out of Reach 2025 report paints a devastating picture of what Utahns are facing: a housing market that has left our workforce, our families, our seniors — and entire communities — behind. As Utah’s official partner to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, we rely on this data every day to fight for housing justice. But this year, the findings hit especially hard.
To afford a modest two-bedroom rental in Utah, you now need to earn $29.29/hour. This has increased by $2.40 from 2024 and $10.46 from 2020. The average renter earns just $20.52/hour. That’s a $8.77/hour wage gap — and it’s growing. There are still 321,790 jobs in Utah paying less than $20 an hour.
A person relying on Supplemental Security Income can afford just $290/month, and even households earning only 30% of the area median income can afford just $377/month — in a market where the average two-bedroom rents for $1,523/month, putting the vast majority of housing completely out of reach for our most vulnerable Utahns.
And while these numbers are staggering, they’re not just numbers. They’re stories of struggle:
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Teachers sleeping in their cars
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Seniors and disabled people losing housing on fixed incomes
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Parents working multiple jobs while raising their kids in motel rooms with no access to cooking nutritious meals
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Families and individuals one unexpected expense away from eviction
Now add to that this looming threat: HUD funding is under attack. Major cuts have been made to critical federal housing programs. Rental assistance, public housing support and homelessness prevention programs — lifelines for millions — are on the chopping block. CDBG and HOME funding that is used to develop affordable housing also faces cuts, leaving developers with a lack of tools for future developments.
If these cuts go through, we will see more families fall into homelessness. More seniors displaced. More children without stability. Because the truth is, too many Utahns are already living paycheck to paycheck, barely staying afloat. If we pull the rug out now, we won’t just deepen this crisis — we’ll lose the fragile safety nets that are keeping people housed.
This is the moment to act, not retreat. We must invest in affordable housing, not slash the very programs that make it possible. We must protect and expand HUD’s role, not gut it. Because part of the solution to homelessness is preventing it in the first place — by ensuring people can live in safe, stable housing in their own communities.
That means building more deeply affordable housing. That means strengthening rental assistance. That means fighting for the resources our communities need — especially in Utah, where many renter households are severely cost burdened, paying more than 50% of their income on rent. In places like Salt Lake City and Summit County, where housing wages are roughly $34/hour, the gap is simply too wide to ignore.
Housing should not be a luxury. Housing should be the foundation for thriving communities and a stable economy. When housing becomes out of reach, so does health, safety, education and opportunity, which leads to instability in our state’s economy.
At the Utah Housing Coalition, we’re calling on elected officials, decision-makers and every Utah resident to stand up — for renters, for individuals, for working families, for the disabled, for the elderly and for our future.
When we keep people housed, we build resilience. We build equity. And we ensure that Utah is a place where everyone — not just the well-off — can call home.