More than half of low-income Southern California tenants are paying more for rent than they can afford, the California Housing Partnership says.
Even after a near doubling of housing funds, Southern California is still nearly 1 million homes short for low-income residents, new housing data shows.
State and federal dollars for homebuilding and affordable housing preservation rose to $6 billion in the fiscal year ending last September, up from $3.2 billion the year before, according to California Housing Partnership, an affordable housing advocacy group.
Nevertheless, the shortfall of homes affordable to low-income residents increased to almost 925,000 homes in 2022, up from 885,000 a year earlier.
The reason, said housing partnership CEO Matt Schwartz, is homebuilding costs are up between 30-50% over the past five years.
“The cost to build is going through the roof,” Schwartz said. “The money that’s available has gone less far, and we haven’t made a dent.”
As a result, the affordable housing gap “really hasn’t budged” in the past few years. ”And that’s disappointing, given the amount of pandemic funding.”