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STAMFORD, Conn. — This isn't how Simon and Jennifer Morris envisioned married life - sharing a charity-subsidized suite with four other hard-up families, abiding by rules that make them feel they are back in high school.

But for a working-class couple with two small children in a pricey hometown, housing options are few.

They abandoned their previous one-bedroom apartment when the rent rose from $1,200 to $1,425. Public housing has long waiting lists, so they moved into a shelter for dislocated families in a converted YMCA.

Around them, southwestern Connecticut's Fairfield County is booming. New housing projects routinely cater to the affluent.

"But everybody forgets the poor guy - the one who pumps your gas, who builds your hotel, who bags your groceries," said Simon Morris, a 35-year-old carpenter. "The cost of living is driving us out."

On both coasts of the United States, and many cities in between, hundreds of thousands of renters face comparable plights. The home mortgage crisis has received far more notice, but experts say the ranks of renters with dire housing problems are growing faster than the ranks of defaulting homeowners.

The Center for Housing Policy reports that the number of working-family renters paying more than half their income for housing has soared from 1 million to 2.1 million since 1997. Overall, advocacy groups say there are 9 million low-income renter households and only 6.2 million units they can reasonably afford.

In the Stamford area, a breadwinner needs to earn more than $30 an hour to afford the rent of a typical two-bedroom apartment, the highest figure in the nation. San Francisco ranks a close second - placing immense burdens on residents such as schoolteacher Meagan Devine and retiree Jose Morales.

Devine, 30, lives with her sister, who is eight months pregnant, and brother-in-law in a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco's Sunset district. She sleeps on the couch and spends weekends at her parents' house in a distant suburb.

Devine isn't an itinerant hippie or recent college grad trying to map a career path. She's a professional with a master's degree in math, and could likely command a six-figure salary at a Silicon Valley engineering firm.

But since college, she has yearned to be a teacher.

Since 2002, she's been a math instructor at Balboa High School, once a hardscrabble school on the city's south side. Test scores and morale are on the rise, and Devine feels she's making a big difference.

"I don't ever want to leave Balboa - I'd love to retire from here," Devine said as she stacked papers after the afternoon bell. "The only problem is, I can't afford to live here on a teacher's salary."

After taxes and a $350 deposit into a retirement fund, she takes home about $2,500 per month. One-bedroom apartments in desirable neighborhoods - near friends and public transit - start around $2,000 per month. Studios start around $1,500.

Devine said she'll likely settle for roommates - a fate she didn't envision for herself after college, and a far cry from her dream of home ownership.

Technically, she could afford her own modest apartment - but she wants to heed the standard advice and not spend more than a third of her income on housing.

That's not easy; experts say nearly a quarter of San Francisco renters spend more than 50 percent of their household earnings on rent, and the market has grown tighter as the mortgage crisis deters some young adults from home-buying.

Jose Morales, now 78, moved into a modest Victorian house in San Francisco's working-class Mission District in 1965, shortly after emigrating from Peru. The rent was $80 a month, and he used leftover earnings to travel, buy nice clothes and eat well.

The rent is now $864 - a bargain by local standards but an unmanageable fortune for Morales. A former tennis instructor, he hurt his back last year and now relies entirely on a Social Security payment of $900 per month.

After paying the rent, he has $36 a month for expenses, including food and medications. He eats at city-sponsored senior centers, which charge $1.50 per meal, buys cut-rate produce from local bodegas and takes freebies from friends.

Back in Stamford, Simon and Jennifer Morris have seen the city's economic boom firsthand but, like many working-class families, haven't shared its fruits.

Simon has irregular earnings as a carpenter; he can make $1,000 in a good week but often has no work at all. Jennifer, 27, worked in the past at local pet stores but took time off this year after the birth of Layla, who's now 7 months old. Their other child, Ethan, is 3.

Since February, they've been living in a "family emergency" shelter on the edge of downtown, part of a multipurpose social-service center run by St. Luke's LifeWorks.

They have two bedrooms of their own, but share bathrooms and a combination kitchen-common room with four other families in a setup resembling a college dorm.

"Sometimes I feel like I'm back in high school," Jennifer said.

The Morrises can stay up to two years at the shelter, far longer than at many similar facilities, and they expect to be able to save money because they only pay St. Luke's about $250 a month.

If the savings materialize, they plan to head south, seeking a community where homes are within reach of a family like theirs.

The executive director of St. Luke's LifeWorks, the Rev. Dick Schuster, says Stamford and boomtowns like it should tackle the housing crisis out of self-interest.

"The people who are working in your restaurants, your fire and police departments, are all of a sudden finding they can no longer afford to live in the community where they work," he said. "And those who do choose to live in the community become the true working poor, hanging on by their thumbs."