gap between income and rent renders people homeless

This is an interesting graphic from the homelessness census. The information is particularly interesting because there is a common misconception that people who are homeless are homeless because they have substance abuse problems, mental health issues, etc. but this graphic shows one just how many people there are out there who are homeless simply because they cannot afford rents. Salaries have decreased since 2001, yet rents have increased steadily. This graph is interesting in its visual representation of the information because it combines the line graph with a bar graph. I am still unsure as to why the employment income changing over time was represented in the form of a bar graph. The graphic immediately demonstrates to the eye what the information is, and there is a huge piece of white space between the bars of income and the lines of rent costs, which clearly shows the discrepancy. Although the graphic is easy to read it does not seem particularly well designed to be visually pleasing like graphs found in periodicals like the new york times, or other newspapers. this graphic was made specifically for a census report on homelessness, which is something that people only read if they are interested in the topic, so it does not need to have the other attractive features that graphs for the mass media need to have. It is a good example of how audience affects the way data is displayed.