A family in Massachusetts working at minimum wage now has to patch together a 135-hour work week just to afford to rent an apartment - and those working above the minimum wage are hard-pressed as well.

This new study "Out of Reach" proves that housing is increasingly becoming an unaffordable luxury. Some 45 percent of Massachusetts renters cannot afford an apartment that charges the government-determined "fair market rent." Earlier studies confirm the substance of these findings: A person earning $ 41,000 a year cannot afford the mortgage payment on an average home, nor the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Boston. Harvard's study on housing suggested that families with two full-time wage earners in Boston can't afford an average two-bedroom apartment.

Inflation in the housing market hits Boston the hardest, but the soaring prices are not confined to the metropolitan Boston area. A family would still have to work 100 hours per week at the current minimum wage to afford the average rents in the rest of the state.

For millions of American families, the housing affordability gap is wide - and growing wider by the day. We know that, but how can we span the gulf between hard work and housing that is increasingly hard to afford?

The first step Congress must take is clear: Pass Sen. Edward Kennedy's bill to raise the federal minimum wage by a dollar an hour to $ 6.15. At a time of unparalleled economic expansion, there should be no excuse for failing to make work pay.

But we must also arrive at a new consensus on federal housing policy. Higher wages are a critical component in the housing crucible, but so too are sound policies and programs which guarantee the availability of affordable housing for working families.

Amazingly, the current federal budget climate would move us in the wrong direction, even as the evidence mounts that affordable rental housing is becoming increasingly scarce nationwide. Senate appropriators have been told to cut more than $ 8 billion from serving our veterans, the environment, scientific research and housing and economic development. HUD programs have traditionally suffered a disproportionate share of cuts in the effort to balance the budget but in the new calculus, housing programs are being targeted for more devastating cuts in excess of 15 percent. The House Appropriations Committee has already cut funding for housing programs by $ 1 billion from last year's levels.

These cuts would deny 65,000 families the assistance necessary to become homeowners; 1,800 elderly people would lose the assistance that keeps them in their homes; and 300,000 public housing units would develop severe structural hazards. All this at a time when the number of families waiting for public housing in Boston has grown by 17 percent in just one year. Additional cuts would deny housing to 35,000 homeless children and slash housing assistance for 6,800 persons with HIV-AIDS.

We need to end the dangerous game of playing budget politics with the lives of real people - restoring these crucial programs and promoting the further development of affordable housing for a stronger, more equitable and productive society. It's time to pass an IRA for homeownership, increase the number of public housing vouchers available to families, reserve a portion of projected budget surpluses for a National Housing Trust and provide incentives for landlords to continue to remain engaged in federal housing partnerships in a tumultuous rental market.

We must also begin to encourage the next generation of public-private partnerships to spur the building of new affordable housing with corporate and community leadership to benefit the middle class and those working to join it.

The important findings in "Out of Reach" must not be shrugged off or relegated to the back pages of our national focus. They reveal a real crisis in a nation that believes that hard work should secure certain fundamental needs - or at the very least that no working American should go without decent housing. It's time that our budget priorities in Washington again reflect that enduring American commitment. John Kerry is U.S. senator from Massachusetts.