For many Massachusetts residents, working hard and earning a decent living no longer seems to guarantee something as basic as being able to afford a home. Housing costs have become a painful reality for families across the state, and new research shows how deeply the affordability crisis is affecting locals already struggling to make ends meet.
A new report from The Pew Charitable Trusts puts some troubling numbers behind that struggle. Researchers found that Massachusetts ranks among the places where high housing costs have the greatest impact on poverty, with roughly 1 in 4 cases of poverty in the state attributable to above-average housing costs under the measure researchers used. Massachusetts ranked fifth among the 50 states and Washington, D.C., underscoring how closely the state’s housing crunch ties to the financial pressure ordinary residents face…