WORCESTER, Mass. - A comprehensive study on housing issues in Massachusetts shows 83,000 new housing units need to be built to address an immediate shortage and keep up with expected growth over the next decade. 

MassINC hosted its 12th annual Gateway Cities Innovation Summit in Worcester Thursday where they unveiled their inaugural Gateway Cities Housing Monitor.

The Massachusetts Institute for a New Commonwealth said half of gateway city renters now spend more than 30% of their income on housing, and one-quarter of them spend more than 50%.

MassINC research director Ben Forman wrote the report. 

He said increasing supply is critical to keeping rents from rising further.

"We need to build 83,000 units across the states, 26 gateway cities, in order to keep prices and rents from continuing to spiral upward to become more and more unaffordable,” said Forman. “And that's about double the amount that we built in gateway cities over the last 10 years."

MassINC also said reclaiming vacant properties and reducing concentrated poverty by building more housing for extremely low-income households would be beneficial to the state.