Linnell Stokes Fall, an anti-poverty activist, said she meets Baltimore families every day who stack up jobs to make ends meet.

“You have to work two to three jobs just to maintain your households today,” said Fall, a chairperson of the Maryland Poor People’s Campaign, an organization that fights racism and poverty.

The latest census findings support her experience. Last year, 4 of 10 households renting in Baltimore spent 35% or more of their income on gross rent, which includes rent and utilities, according to a Baltimore Banner analysis of estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Baltimore’s poorest renters were also the city’s most cost-burdened: 39% of occupied rental units housed tenants making less than $35,000 a year, the analysis found. More than half of them spent 50% or more of their income on rent.

A household is considered cost-burdened when its members spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban development.

Households that spend more than 50% of their income on rent are considered severely burdened.

High housing costs reduce the amount of money household members have to spend on other necessities, including food, transportation and health care, research shows.

Last year, households in Maryland had among the highest median incomes of any state in the nation, according to the new census estimates.

But the median income for households across the state — an estimated $102,905 last year — was about 1.6 times higher than the typical income for a Baltimore household, just under $65,000.

Baltimore had among the lowest median incomes of any Maryland jurisdiction with more than 65,000 residents.

Fall, who is retired, faces her own dilemma trying to find a place to rent with a limited income. There are yearslong wait times for certain housing in the city, she said.

Housing cost burdens aren’t a Baltimore-specific problem, according to Michael Bader, a demographer and associate professor of sociology at the Johns Hopkins University.

Across the nation, median gross rent increased by 2.7% in 2024 compared to the year prior, according to a Census Bureau news release.

The typical renter spent 31% of their income on rent last year.

“We just don’t have enough housing,” Bader said. “Nationwide, we don’t have the number of housing units we need to deal with the number of households we have.”

The housing shortage can be attributed to a host of factors, Bader said: difficulties financing construction, zoning regulations that make it hard to build and construction expertise lost and never regained after the housing crisis that rocked the nation nearly two decades ago.

Fall said she might have an easier time finding housing in other counties, but she wants to stay in Baltimore, where she was born and raised and continues her advocacy work.

Fall hopes she can turn her situation around and prove that Baltimore is livable and supportive of those without a lavish income.

West Baltimore’s Center for Urban Families, which works with fathers and families to reach stability and economic success, continues to look for ways to maximize the earned dollars of its members, said Joseph T. Jones Jr., the organization’s founder and CEO.

It partners with the CASH Campaign of Maryland to provide income tax services for low-income people and check to see who is eligible for the Maryland earned income tax credit, which could reduce or eliminate the amount of state and local income tax that someone owes.

Housing is also one of the leading requests for services at the center, with a majority of members using half or more of their income on rent, and has led to a need to get creative, relying on family and social circles, Jones said.

“They’ve been attached to poverty for quite a long time,” Jones said. “The amount of time it takes for them to move up and out of poverty takes more time than somebody who has not been exposed to poverty.”