host: diane yentel is the president and c.e.o. of the national low-income housing coalition here to talk about rental housing access and affordability. let's begin with low income. how do you define that? guest: low income is defined by the u.s. department of housing and urban development. and they define a low income person as somebody who is at 80% or below the area's median income. at the coalition we focus on housing affordability for people who are extremely low income. that's defined by people who are at or below 30% of the area's median income. it's for those people who are at that extremely low incomes where the greatest housing affordability challenges lie. host: "new york times" recent headline, more renters than ever before are burdened by the rent they pay. a neujahr srard report says 22.4 million households in the united states now spend more than 30% of their income in rent with 12.1 million spending more than 50%. tell us more. guest: that's right. the housing affordability crisis has really reached new levels in ou

host: diane yentel is the president and c.e.o. the national low-income housing coalition here to talk about rental housing access and affordability. let's begin with low income. how do you define that? guest: low income is defined by the u.s. department of housing and urban development. and they define a low income person as somebody who is at 80% or below the area's median income. at the coalition we focus on housing affordability for people who are extremely low income. that's defined by people who are at or below 30% of the area's median income. it's for those people who are at that extremely low the greatest housing affordability challenges lie. host: "new york times" recent headline, more renters than ever before are burdened by the rent they pay. a neujahr srard report says 22.4 million households in the united states now spend more than 30% of their income in rent with 12.1 million spending more than 50%. tell us more. guest: that's right. the housing affordability crisis has really reached new levels in our country where o

host: diane yentel is the president and

host: diane yentel, president and c.e.o. of national low-income housing coalition. you can learn more if you can go mlihc.org. thank you for the conversation this mor counting, powered by cable. >> washington journal continues. host: here with us is the man in charge of veteran benefits, the undersecretary for benefits. talk about the va, how big is it and what do you do? guest: thank you for having me. i have the privilege of running the veterans benefits administration which is responsible for delivering nonmedical benefits to veterans, their families and survivors. there are 34,000 employees whose job is to deliver these earned benefits. they range from disability compensation to home loans, to education benefits and life insurance and support for service members as they transition into civilian life. host: nonmedical, is that designation important? guest: it is because the v.a. is a very large organization, the second largest department. the largest component is the veterans health administration that serves 9 million veterans and is responsible for delivering h