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A <br />Orange County, North Carolina - AIFCH - 2007 <br />Monthly Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments for an individual are $603 in North <br />Carolina. If SSI represents an individual's sole source of income, 181 % in monthly rent is <br />affordable, while the FMR for a one bedroom is $573. <br />Orange County Rentals <br />Rental units consist of a combination of single-family homes (attached or detached), various <br />types of small complexes (one to four units) and larger apartment developments (five or more <br />units). The Census Bureau classifies units as renter-occupied if they are not owner-occupied, <br />whether they are rented for cash or not. <br />Apartment developments with five or more units represent 52.9% of the County's renter- <br />occupied housing. Almost one-quarter (24.0%) of the remaining rental units are single-family <br />units (attached or detached), 16.2% are two-to-four-family units. The balance is made up of <br />mobile homes or other types of housing. <br />Gross rents (rent plus utility expenses) range between $500 and $899 for most of the rental <br />housing (55.6%) in Orange County. Less than one-quarter of all rental units (22.1 %) have gross <br />rents below $500. The median gross rent for 2000 is $684 <br />The FMRs for Orange County (Table 6) increased an average of 2% per year since 1996, but <br />the rate of increase slowed dramatically in recent years. The annual increase between 2001 and <br />2002 was 3%; by 2004 it dropped to 0.4%. <br />Table 7 -Fair Market Rents 2006/2007 -Orange County <br />>Bedcooms FMR Rents <br />Zero-Bedroom ' ' $511 <br />One-Bedroom $700 <br />Two=Bedroom $785 <br />Three'-Bedroom $1;026 <br />Four-Bedroom $1,'106 > <br />Orange County's 2006 Area Median Income (AMI) was $61,000 annually. Thirty percent of AMI <br />is $18,150. But estimated median income for Orange County renter households was half as <br />much at $30,0009. <br />Using a mean renter wage of $9.08 an hour, workers earning this amount could afford $472 in <br />monthly rents. The County's minimum hourly wage is $5.15, meaning that renters earning this <br />amount could afford a rent of $268. Renters earning SSI yield $603 per month, putting <br />affordable rent at $181. <br />Since an hourly wage of $9.83 is required to pay rent on a studio apartment, most hourly <br />workers in the County are priced out of larger units. It's estimated that 52% of renters would be <br />unable to afford atwo-bedroom apartment at FMR. The maximum affordable monthly housing <br />8 <br />