Excerpts from, "Locked Out: California's Affordable Housing Crisis", May 2000, a publication of the California Budget Project:

Over four out of ten (43 percent) of all California households are renters, and renters face the greatest affordability challenges. In 1997, nearly a quarter of the renter households in the state's metropolitan areas (1 million out of 4.2 million households) spent more than half of their incomes on rent. And another 50% of the remaining renters paid more than 30 percent of their incomes toward shelter.

Nearly two-thirds (65%) of low income renters paid more than half their income for housing in 1997 and 86 percent spent over the recommended 30 percent of their income on housing.

Rental housing costs increased 38 percent in San Francisco between 1989 an 1998, while the income of the median renter household increased by 9.6 percent and the median income of renter households with children increased 6.3 percent.

A geographic mismatch between high employment growth areas and affordable housing limit welfare recipients' access to jobs. The wages typically earned by those transitioning from welfare to work are insufficient to offset increased housing costs in areas where employment opportunities are better.

Based on current Fair Market Rents, families relying on CalWORKs, the state's cash assistance program for poor families, pay over 60% of their grant toward housing in all California counties. California's welfare recipients are also less likely to receive federal housing assistance than are welfare recipients in other states. California ranks 49th among the 50 states, with only Michigan having a lower share of welfare recipients receiving housing assistance.

Seniors who rent face significant cost burdens, with 65 percent paying in excess of 30 percent of their incomes for rent and 41 percent paying more than half of their incomes for rent. This poses a significant problem for seniors who are more likely to be living on a fixed income than younger renters.

Three factors at the heart of California's housing crisis are:

1. Only 25 percent of the total new housing built were multifamily units between 1990 and 1999, as opposed to 45 percent during the 1980s, amounting to a 69 percent drop from the levels of the 1980s.

2. Job growth exceeded housing growth, adding 3.9 new jobs for each new unit of housing.

3. California's system of local government finance limits the amount of revenue generated by housing, and encourages local communities to favor sales tax generating retail development over residential development.

Demand for federally-supported assistance is intense. A recent survey of twenty local housing authorities found more than three times the number of families receiving assistance on waiting lists for Section 8 housing, and almost four times the number of families wait listed for public housing units.

-- Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco
468 Turk St.
San Francisco, CA 94102
vox: (415) 346.3740
Fax: (415) 775.5639
coh@sfo.com
www.sfo.com/~coh