You guys are definitely living in the wrong part of the country! There is a lovely upstairs 2 bedroom apartment down the street from me, and across the street from a park, it goes for the whopping cost of $300 a month plus utilities. I could easily live on 24K a year, and have done so, in little town USA.
Get out of the east coast, west coast, south coast, big city, burbs, etc., and move to a midwestern small town and see how it's done! Sure, you might have to commute a little ways (50 miles would be the furthest) for a job, but there's no traffic on the way there!
Indy