Nearly half of renters paying too much for housing

The U.S. rental crisis is easing, but nearly half of renters are still paying too much for their housing, according to a study being released Friday by Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Forty-eight percent of renters, or 21 million people, spent more than 30 percent of their income on rent in 2015, according to the report.

Anyone who spends more than 30 percent of his or her income on housing is "cost-burdened," in the eyes of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, meaning that he or she might have troubling holding their finances together.

A quarter of renters are "severely cost burdened," meaning that they spend more than 50 percent of their incomes on rent. More than 11 million people fall into that category.

Those numbers have improved slightly in recent years as unemployment has declined. At the same time, significantly fewer homeowners are facing affordability problems, as the share that is burdened has fallen from 30.4 percent in 2010 to 23.9 percent in 2015.