Lease Lantern tracks 23,782 affordable and income-based properties — roughly 1.7 million apartments, about 1.48 million of them assisted units — across all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories, spanning 6,709 cities. Mapping that inventory by state shows where the country’s subsidized-housing stock is actually concentrated.
The ten states with the most units
By total units, supply clusters in the Northeast, the industrial Midwest, and the most populous states:
- New York — 143,957 units across 1,362 properties
- California — 135,605 units across 1,795 properties
- Ohio — 99,171 units across 1,393 properties
- Texas — 90,585 units across 1,011 properties
- Illinois — 85,477 units across 944 properties
- Massachusetts — 80,394 units across 902 properties
- Pennsylvania — 76,854 units across 1,053 properties
- Michigan — 72,027 units across 712 properties
- New Jersey — 62,646 units across 693 properties
- Florida — 56,541 units across 689 properties
What the map tells us
Two patterns stand out. First, supply does not simply track population: Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — older industrial states — carry far more subsidized units per resident than fast-growing Sun Belt states like Florida and Texas, a legacy of mid-20th-century public and HUD-assisted construction. Second, units are heavily concentrated in a handful of large metros, so a renter’s odds of finding an opening depend enormously on where they live.
Finding units near you
Because availability is so uneven, the practical first step is to search locally and get on waitlists early. Browse the largest markets — New York, California, Ohio, Texas, and Illinois — or find your own state. New to the system? Start with what income-based housing is and how waitlists work.
Assisted vs. total units
Of the 1.7 million apartments tracked, about 1.48 million are assisted units — homes where a federal subsidy ties the rent to a tenant’s income rather than the open market. The gap between total and assisted units reflects mixed-income developments, where subsidized apartments sit alongside market-rate ones in the same building. For renters, the assisted-unit count is the number that matters, because it represents the apartments where rent is genuinely capped relative to income.