Stats on U.S. Home Ownership 2011 - The percentage of Americans homes owners have seen its biggest decline since the Great Depression, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The rate of home ownership fell to 65.1% in April 2010, 1.1 percentage points lower than it was in 2000. The decline was the biggest drop since the 1930s, when home ownership plunged 4.2%.

Home ownership during the 2000s "was really high in the middle of the decade, up to almost 70% at one point around 2004," said Ellen Wilson, a survey statistician with the bureau. The crash from that peak was more than 4 percentage points in just about five years -- a far more dramatic decline than the 1.1% drop over the 10-year period.

Certain regions have been hit harder than others. The West had the lowest home ownership rate at 60.5%, while the Midwest had the highest rate at 69.2%.The South came in at 66.7% and the Northeast at 62.2%. Among the states, New York had the lowest home ownership rate of 53.3%, but the District of Columbia's home ownership rate was below that at 42%. West Virginia (73.4%) led the way with the highest home ownership rate, while Minnesota (73%), Michigan, Delaware and Iowa (all 72.1%) were also well above the norm. Number of vacant homes grows by 44%

Thanks to the housing bust there has been a substantial increase in empty homes. The number of vacant housing units jumped an astonishing 43.8% to 15 million (or 11.4% of all housing units) in 2010, up from 10.4 million in 2000. During that 10-year period, the number of homes in the U.S. increased by 16 million to 131.7 million housing units, according to Census. Many Sun-Belt states suffered large vacancy increases. In Nevada, ground zero for foreclosures over the past few years, vacancies grew nearly 120% to 14.3% of all homes. Georgia vacancies jumped 82.7%, Florida's 62.6% and Arizona's 61%.

Although vacancies in Maine grew by only 23%, the state had the highest percentage of vacant homes overall at 22.8%. Vermont was close behind with 20.5% of its homes empty. Florida was third with 17.5%.

Renters in large metropolitan areas.  Of the 10 largest cities, New York had the highest ratio with a whopping 69% of all homes in the five boroughs -- Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island -- occupied by renters. Los Angeles had a 61.5% rental rate and Dallas was 55.9%. San Jose had the lowest percentage of renters for any of the 10 largest cities with just 41.5%. San Antonio (43.5.%) and Phoenix (42.4%) had comparatively few renters as well.