For most low-income households, housing has become increasingly unaffordable. High housing cost burdens have serious implications, including the growing problems of homelessness and hunger. Data on national trends and housing conditions suggest that just as the affordable housing problems worsened dramatically for low-income households between the mid-1970s and the mid-1980s, so too are they likely to deteriorate further in the years ahead unless major changes are made in government policies and in the actions of the private sector. This report is based on data from the "American Housing Survey (AHS), 1985" published by the Bureau of the Census and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1989. The following topics are analyzed: (1) housing burdens on poor households; (2) factors contributing to the housing crisis for the poor; (3) substandard and overcrowded housing; (4) housing assistance for the poor; (5) ominous trends for subsidized housing; (6) characteristics of poor renter and homeowner households; (7) housing problems of Black and Hispanic households; and (8) housing problems of elderly, single-parent, and young households. Statistical data are included on 12 graphs and 13 tables. The appendices comprise a discussion of the standards of housing affordability and descriptions of Federal low-income housing assistance programs. (FMW)