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36 community at large, forced displacements entail direct public costs in the form of fees for court services, social services, and use of homeless shelters and emergency foster care. The recent focus on forced relocations has led several cities to review their eviction procedures. In 2017, New York City became the first city in the country to guarantee legal representation to low-income residents facing eviction, other cities have taken steps to limit the set of causes for which landlords can pursue eviction. Expanding support for emergency rental assistance and rapid re- housing programs would also help to protect households most at risk of homelessness. GROWING INCOME SEGREGATION Residential segregation by income has increased steadily in recent years, especially among households with the highest and lowest incomes. This trend adds to the challenges posed by entrenched residential segregation by race and ethnicity in many cities. It also raises concerns that low-income renters have increasingly limited access to a full range of neighborhoods. In 2015, the average renter household earning under $20,000 lived in a neighborhood where 28 percent of residents had comparably low incomes and only 15 percent had incomes above $100,000 (Figure37). In comparison, the average US household lived in a neigh - Rental Property Owners Are Slower than Homeowners to Rebuild Following Disasters Condition of Horricano-0am2ged Properties in Louisiana and Mississippi After Five Years (Percent) 90 go 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Small Renal Properties Homeowner Propar0es ■Remin[l P'p Cleared Lot In Need of Suhsticaral Repairs Nates: Sample is representative of residential properties that experienced major or severe hurricane de mage and were located on significantly affected blocks. Rebuilt structures are resldeneas that do net show substantial repair needs, Cleared lots contain an empty lot ore foundation with no slanding structure, Source: Spade[ 2915. borhood where 18 percent of residents had incomes below $20,000 and 24 percent had incomes above $100,000. A recent JCHS working paper provides evidence of the detrimental effects of residential segregation on the educational attainment, employment, socioeconomic mobility, and health of low-income renters. Households living in areas of concentrated poverty are particularly vulnerable. Such segregation not only limits economic potential for individuals and society as a whole, but also reduces social cohesion and intergroup trust, increases prejudice, and erodes democratic participation. Reversing this trend is difficult and would require changes in both private markets and the location of assisted units. A key step would be to increase the supply of low-cost rental units in neighborhoods of all types, including construction of assisted units in a broader range of neighborhoods. Many states have in fact begun to incentiv- ize LIHTC applicants to propose projects that do just that. In addi- tion, the recently finalized Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule establishes a planning process for local HUD grantees to assess current residential patterns and to take meaningful actions that foster inclusion. Reforms to the housing choice voucher program would also help to increase the options available to low-income households, outreach to landlords, protections against source -of -income discrimination, and mobility counseling would all serve to expand the range of prop- erties and neighborhoods available to voucher holders. For example, the results of Baltimore's Special Mobility Housing Choice Voucher program demonstrate that mobility counseling can help to increase neighborhood choice among voucher holders. HUD's Small Area Fair Market Rent demonstration is also testing whether adopting neigh- borhood -level fair market rents (FMRs) would induce moves into a broader set of neighborhoods. HUD currently sets a single fair mar- ket rent for each metropolitan area, often forcing voucher holders to choose from units clustered in a few neighborhoods where rents fall below the FMR. While the interim report on the demonstration found evidence that neighborhood -level FMRs broadened the loca- tion choices of voucher recipients in some areas, the results were less encouraging in other areas, and HUD has suspended expansion of the demonstration to additional metros. REBUILDING AFTER DISASTERS The damage wrought by natural disasters in 2017 will pose substan- tial rebuilding challenges for years to come. Much of the housing stock lost in the recent hurricanes, for example, was renter -occu- pied. Indeed, the latest American Community Survey indicates that rental units accounted for 41 percent of all housing in the Houston metro area, 36 percent in Florida, and 32 percent in Puerto Rico.