LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Louisville's housing crisis is not going away.

Mayor Craig Greenberg, D-Louisville, said the housing affordability gap is widening for Louisville’s lowest earners. He shared some results Wednesday from a Housing Needs Assessment the city conducted.

Upfront, Greenberg said Louisville is short 36,000 affordable housing units, adding 25% of residents are spending 30% or more of their monthly income on housing.

“Absolutely no one should have to pay more than 30% of their income toward their housing expenses each month," Greenberg said. 

Every five years, Louisville Metro Government and the Louisville Affordable Housing Trust Fund conduct a housing needs assessment, breaking down availability and affordability of homes in the city, as well as the makeup of more than 20 residential neighborhoods.

The Louisville Affordable Housing Trust said not only is there a shortage of affordable housing units, but there’s a shortage of land making the problem worse.

“We don’t have enough land in the community to meet the need with all single-family housing," said Christie McCravy, executive director of the Housing Trust Fund. "We need to be creative as well. The 'middle housing' that we talk about, duplexes and triplexes, provides some of that creativity."

To build more of these homes, Greenberg said there needs to be a major change to the zoning codes in residential neighborhoods. This is something he said last October at the construction site of a subsidized apartment complex for senior residents.

Essentially, the city said the housing shortage must be addressed by building more apartment complexes, but Greenberg said Wednesday it doesn't mean it must be large developments with dozens or hundreds of units. However, as it stands, many neighborhoods don't allow for multi-family home construction.

“We have to have a land development code that makes building housing easier, makes building houses affordable," Greenberg said.

Greenberg said he is working with stakeholders to change building codes while Louisville Metro said it needs to attract developers with incentives to build more units for subsidized housing. The number of Louisville residents applying for a mortgage also rose since the last assessment from around 100,000 to 160,000 applicants.

Greenberg's “My Louisville Home” strategy aims to fully fund a down payment assistant program at $3 million a year, he said. Another one of the mayor's goals is to create or preserve 15,000 affordable units.

“We need affordable housing in the East End, West End and the South End and right here in the middle of our city and every neighborhood in between," Greenberg said. 

In the five years since the last assessment, Louisville added 5,200 subsidized affordable housing units.