Practically 4 in 10 renters in Los Angeles County have anxious about shedding their houses and changing into homeless in the previous couple of years, in keeping with the outcomes of a brand new survey from UCLA. An analogous share have anxious that they or their household would go hungry as a result of they can not afford the price of meals.
The 2024 High quality of Life Index, ready by UCLA’s Luskin Faculty of Public Affairs, means that the county‘s renters are feeling significantly intense pressure from the steep value of housing mixed with inflation.
“Everyone feels they’re being squeezed by the price of dwelling, even prosperous folks,” stated Zev Yaroslavsky, the previous longtime county supervisor and metropolis councilmember, now director of the Los Angeles Initiative on the Luskin Faculty. However for renters, that stress is very acute, he added.
General, researchers discovered the excessive value of dwelling, particularly housing, is pushing down high quality of life for folks throughout the county.
This 12 months, the general high quality of life ranking reported by survey respondents dropped to 53 on a scale of 10 to 100 — tying with 2022 for the bottom ranking for the reason that survey launched in 2016. The ranking for value of dwelling dropped to 38, the bottom rating ever noticed in any class.
Renters reported decrease satisfaction with the price of dwelling and jobs and the financial system than almost each different main demographic group within the survey of 1,686 county residents.
Fewer than 1 / 4 of renters stated they thought they might ever have the ability to purchase a house in part of L.A. the place they might need to reside. And about half, 51%, of renters reported being pessimistic about their financial future in L.A. County, whereas 61% of householders stated they felt optimistic.
Pablo Estupiñan, marketing campaign director for the tenant advocacy group Strategic Actions for a Simply Financial system, or SAJE, stated the findings mirror his expertise working with tenants throughout Los Angeles.
“Group members are very involved about dealing with an eviction or changing into homeless,” he stated. “That’s type of been the development we’re seeing, with wages which might be fairly stagnant as rents hold going up.”
Median hire in Los Angeles is $2,083, in keeping with Residence Record. That’s down barely from final 12 months however nonetheless excessive sufficient to create vital challenges for renters throughout the area.
Earlier this 12 months, a report from the Housing Initiative at Penn estimated that between 97,000 and 153,000 households within the metropolis of L.A. have been behind on hire as of August 2023. Whereas a lot of that hire debt was accrued in the course of the pandemic, a whole lot of it piled up extra not too long ago, indicating that financial strains for the reason that pandemic are difficult renters.
“As a lot as doable, it is going to be simpler and cheaper to maintain folks housed than to search out folks new housing after they’re evicted or develop into homeless,” the Penn report concluded.
Final 12 months, there have been greater than 47,000 eviction court docket filings throughout the county, probably the most since 2016, in keeping with knowledge compiled by Kyle Nelson, senior coverage and analysis analyst for SAJE.
Advocates anticipate that quantity might improve once more this 12 months, after the final of COVID-era renter protections expired in February.
The survey, carried out in English and Spanish from late February to mid-March, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.