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![](https://davisvanguard.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Homeless-Unsplash.jpg)
By David M. Greenwald
Executive Editor
A poll released at the beginning of June by PPIC found not surprisingly that renters have been hammered by the latest economics—the poll found nearly 70 percent renters said their personal finances were “fair” or “poor” compared with just one-third for owners.
A majority of Californians favor changing state environmental regulations as a way to make housing more affordable.
To illustrate the stress brought about by rental prices: Renters increasingly are more likely than homeowners to support changing CEQA in an effort to increase housing affordability. Sixty-six percent of renters support changing CEQA while only 53 percent of homeowners do.
“Amid widespread concerns about housing costs, nearly six in ten Californians approve of reforming CEQA as a way of increasing affordability,” said Mark Baldassare, PPIC Statewide Survey director and Miller Chair in Public Policy. “This includes two in three California renters and slightly more than half of homeowners.”
A story yesterday in the LA Downtown News noted, “According to a new statewide study, a single person making $70,650 in Los Angeles County is now considered low income.”
This has critical implications for housing. Because it means that LA’s “median household income remains below what is considered low income” and because of this, The California Department of Housing and Community Development (CDHCD) found that more than 50 percent of residents of LA County are considered “low-income.”
According to the story, “CDHCD attributed this upward trend to inflation and the high cost of living.”
It notes, “On the lowest end of the report’s income classification, the ‘Acutely Low Income’ category is singular to California after the state adopted AB 1043 in 2021. That bill was intended to increase housing and social welfare programs for the state’s most vulnerable and categorizes those bringing in 15% or less of the county’s median income as ‘Acutely Low Income,’”
Phil Kramer, the CEO of Housing Matters in Santa Cruz cited two new reports that lead to the same conclusion: more housing.
First, he cites to a UCSF Homelessness and Housing Initiative report which notes that “while homelessness is a major issue for California, there are many conflicting ideas about what to do. … We need to understand who is experiencing it, how they became homeless, what their experiences are, and what is preventing them from exiting homelessness.”
At the same time, a report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition named Santa Cruz County as the least affordable place to live in the entire country.
Kramer argues, “What the general public may not know is that solutions to homelessness are already in action, right here in our community, every single day.”
He notes the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative study (BHHI) “confirms nine out of 10 people experiencing homelessness in California are Californians. It confirms housing costs were a significant factor in people losing housing. And it confirms many of the things we know about the experience of homelessness: A lack of access to adequate health care; a desire to work thwarted by barriers caused by homelessness; a large swath of the homeless population living unsheltered.”
Kramer continues, saying “having a remarkably tight housing market is not sustainable, nor is it equitable.” His organization, he says, is “deeply committed to adding more housing inventory within the community, particularly housing designed for those who are coming out of chronic homelessness.”
My point is somewhat different. My point is that each community is dealing with its own set of challenges related to housing affordability and the cost of living.
And who is facing the biggest stress? Those already living on the margins.
For me the critical part of the data is how vulnerable low income people are to homelessness as the result of the combination of high housing costs with low incomes.
Some commenters have asked—I think sardonically—if people go from stable housing one day, to homeless the next. Answer from the data was a clear no to that.
The BHHI found, “The median monthly household income of participants in the six months prior to homelessness was $960.”
Given the cost of housing, that figure not surprisingly will make a lot of people vulnerable to becoming homeless because there is basically no margin for error at that income level.
Perhaps surprisingly they found that PRIOR to being homeless, the median monthly housing costs were $375 (in the danger area for sure).
However, they warn, “this statistic obscures an important point. Many participants were already living with family or friends (‘doubled up’) or living in informal arrangements without leases; others entered from a leaseholder arrangement and still others entered homelessness from institutional settings where they didn’t have housing costs.”
Nearly half then entered “homelessness from a non-leaseholder, non-institutional housing situation, 32% entered from a leaseholder arrangement, and 19% entered from an institutional setting.”
It continued, “Participants entering from non-leaseholder arrangements tended to have relatively low housing costs, but were staying in suboptimal—and impermanent—places, without legal protections. Many, if not most, had left formal leaseholding arrangements at some point before doubling up, but had forestalled homelessness through one or more non-leaseholding arrangements. Earlier, they had faced experiences similar to those who had left leaseholding arrangements. After losing that housing, they experienced a more gradual descent into homelessness, exhausting other options before entering homelessness.”
So no, they didn’t go from stable, secure housing to homelessness overnight. It was a gradual process.
The study found the median monthly income for non-leaseholders in the six months prior to homelessness was $950 while the median monthly income for leaseholders was about $1400. There was no margin for error even for that group, as they were paying an average of about $700 just on rent—half their income.
The study found, “Among non-leaseholders who paid rent, 57% were rent burdened (paying more than 30% of their income in rent) and 41% were severely rent burdened (paying more than 50% of their household income in rent).”
From this it should be obvious that what has happened is, as the cost of housing has gone up, the meager earnings of those on the low end of the scale have not kept up.
It seems to me that this data then suggests a few things—one that we need more housing, and second we need to do a better job of identifying people on the verge of becoming homeless and get them into supportive housing before it becomes chronic.
Uh, huh. How is that question being phrased, and why was it asked? (There’s an assumption built into the apparent question, for one thing.)
In other words, how did that question end up in a survey in the first place?
Were renters asked if they support rent control? And if not, why not?
Interestingly-enough, the referenced article shows that this was the ONLY question asked, in regard to housing. And it doesn’t even show the actual question asked.
At least, that’s how it seems regarding the single paragraph describing the survey, in that article.
Was it prefaced with an assumption? (For example, “would you support changing CEQA “if” it led to lower housing prices?)
And, do “you” (survey respondent) even know what CEQA is or what it does in the first place? (That’s the first question that should be asked.)
Of course, there’d also be the usual questions regarding how the survey itself was conducted. But we’re already not off to a good start, here.
Your comments Ron appear to attempt to weaponize the CEQA to prevent the construction of all types of new housing in California. Looks like the questions you pose must be answered by you Ron, not by anyone else. This site is owned by the Davis Vanguard, not Ron Oertel.
https://voiceofsandiego.org/2021/11/18/ceqa-was-meant-to-serve-us-but-unintended-consequences-have-turned-it-into-a-nightmare/
Will California’s misused environmental law finally be reformed?
https://calmatters.org/commentary/2023/02/environmental-ceqa-law-reform/
The Inequalities of California’s Environmental Quality Act
https://www.theregreview.org/2022/05/05/mckeen-inequalities-of-californias-environmental-quality-act/
Companies Use CEQA as a Weapon
When a student housing firm faced competition in the form of a proposed new building at USC, it filed a lawsuit against them using CEQA (the California Environmental Quality Act). Then they sued the developer’s other projects too.
https://www.planetizen.com/node/52413
How Californians Are Weaponizing Environmental Law
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/signature-environmental-law-hurts-housing/618264/
Failing to see how your comment relates to anything I said or asked.
But now that you mention it, I would ask another question as well. That is, if folks are actually using CEQA as a “weapon”, what does that indicate regarding “support” for what government is trying to force?
And again, “who” is determining that CEQA is being used as a “weapon” in the first place? Is this (ultimately) a claim being put forth by the building industry, and picked up by the media?
(Of course, building trade unions have been one of the primary alleged “abusers” of CEQA in the first place.)
Overall, what we seem to have here are interests which aren’t happy that the state has stopped growing. And those interests have infiltrated government representatives, as well. Truth be told, those interests and views have also infiltrated mainstream media.
Again, ask yourself why the question of rent control “doesn’t seem to come up” in these type of surveys. If you think that the “reason” is because tenants “don’t support it”, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell to you.
But again, there’s built-in assumptions underlying the questions asked – which is intended to “skew” the results. And I doubt that most people even know what CEQA is, or does in the first place.
You are correct Ron, that’s exactly how the questions were phrased:
18. Do you favor or oppose reducing state government regulations by changing CEQA—the California Environmental Quality Act—as a way to make housing more affordable in your part of California?
19. Do you favor or oppose changing California’s environmental regulations and local permitting process as a way to make housing more affordable in your part of California?
https://www.ppic.org/?show-pdf=true&docraptor=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ppic.org%2Fpublication%2Fppic-statewide-survey-californians-and-their-government-june-2023%2F
And the issue with the question is…? No survey can comprehensively ask about every proposed policy solution–the respondents’ patience is already being pushed in many cases. There have other surveys that have asked about rent control support that have been well publicized. PPIC is generally more focused on natural resource and environmental issues, so it has a focus on CEQA.
It appears no one has yet read beyond the first vignette.
People who have become homeless due to changed financial circumstances are probably most efficiently and effectively assisted by financial support programs — housing vouchers, temporary rental assistance, etc. This assumes, though, that there’s a sufficient inventory of housing in the community in their income range even with rental support.
Obviously those with mental health and/or substance abuse issues need a more comprehensive set of services.
The best approach is to offer renters financial assistance just in time so they can keep up with their rents and avoid eviction. Prevention is often the best policy.