Rental housing demand came roaring back in the second year of the pandemic, reducing vacancy rates and driving up rents, according to the America’s Rental Housing 2022 report from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. The report indicates that some of the rental rebound reflects the lack of inventory in the for-sale market, which has kept many higher-income renters from buying homes. At the same time, however, many lower-income households, and especially lower-income households of color, still struggle to pay the rent.