What is “Affordable”
To us, a home is affordable if it costs no more than one-third of your gross income.
That’s it. That’s the whole definition. We don’t need to make this more complicated than it already is! We believe strongly that this hyper-personal definition, which will be different for every family, keeps the focus where it should be: on our families. That’s why we’ve never met someone who doesn’t want affordable housing for themselves, for their families, and for their whole community.
The big challenge in front of us is how to create a housing market that reflects the breadth and diversity of our people, and makes sure that everyone has a safe, affordable home, regardless of how big their paycheck is.
Just because we think housing affordability should be personalized doesn’t mean that it’s always a practical way to fix the problem. With 133 million households in the United States, 133 million definitions could get a little… unwieldy!
That’s why housing programs often group us into different affordability brackets based on the “Area Median Income” or AMI".
In Central Ohio, the median three-person family earned about $98,000 per year in 2025. Exactly as many of our families earned more than that family as earned less. Families that make $98,000 a year or less earn 100% AMI or less.
This lets funders create programs to serve the unique needs of different brackets. For instance, families around the 100% AMI bracket may need extra help buying their first home. But families around 30% AMI (which is closer to $29,000 per year) may be having more trouble keeping up with rent increases. Those are different problems for different families, and being able to categorize these needs into different brackets lets groups be more targeted when crafting solutions.
Check out our annual “Housing 101” flyer to learn more about today’s affordability brackets.
Did you know that Central Ohio really is making progress?!
Since AHACO began its work in 2017, the number of our neighbors that are severely housing cost burdened has declined by 5%. We know what’s possible when we put our minds to it and come together as a community. Now is the time to scale up those efforts and keep pushing towards success.
We can be the first city in the country to actually fix housing and keep our community affordable.
If we continue to cut our housing gap, Central Ohio can unlock 40,000 more jobs each year, lift the performance score of five local school districts, and expand our residents’ life expectancy by years. Learn why protecting and expanding housing affordability is a game changer for all of us with our Finding Home research.
Go deeper with Columbus Underground
A few years back, AHACO sat down for a conversation with the Columbus Underground’s Brett Warren to talk about what affordable means and how we get more of it. The short series is very much worth the read!
Here’s What ‘Affordable Housing’ Means in Practice in Columbus
What is workforce housing? Is it different than affordable? How are these AMIs calculated after all? Find these answers and more.
Why It’s So Hard to Build Affordable Housing
How does someone even begin building affordable housing? What tools are available to bring down costs? What else can our community do to make this easy?
Out of Reach
In Central Ohio, a worker needs to earn $27.79 per hour just to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment. That’s almost triple our minimum wage. You can explore how much is needed in your own zip code with the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s Out of Reach interactive report.
The Gap
The Greater Columbus area only has one home for every four extremely low-income households (folks making a little over minimum wage). By that calculation, also measured by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, Central Ohio’s housing “gap” is worse than San Francisco and New York City.
Want to learn more?
Request an AHACO speaker for your next event
We have a ton of housing data and we love sharing it! From group lectures to interactive dialogues, message us to see how we can customize a conversation that’s right for your organization. And it’s always free!