Affordable housing

Affordable housing is housing which is deemed affordable to those with a median household income or below as rated by the national government or a local government by a recognized housing affordability index. Most of the literature on affordable housing refers to mortgages and number of forms that exist along a continuum – from emergency shelters, to transitional housing, to non-market rental (also known as social or subsidized housing), to formal and informal rental, indigenous housing, and ending with affordable home ownership. In Australia, the National Affordable Housing Summit Group developed their definition of affordable housing as housing that is '...reasonably adequate in standard and location for lower or middle income households and does not cost so much that a household is unlikely to be able to meet other basic needs on a sustainable basis.' Affordable housing in the United Kingdom includes 'social rented and intermediate housing, provided to specified eligible households whose needs are not met by the market.'