Evelyn Arceo has a full-time job as a baker at Universal Studios Hollywood, making $19 an hour. But even if she works a few hours overtime at the theme park, the single mother of four can barely pay her rent for her one-bedroom apartment in Panorama City.
Considering her salary, buying a house is out of the question.
The already $1,300 monthly rent is “too expensive at the moment,” Alceo said, adding that late fees of $40 to $50 aggravate her financial woes. She said, “I don’t think I’ve ever kept my rent before.”
Arceo’s situation is common in California, which has become one of the leaders in rental housing in the nation. In the Golden State, 45.5% of rental housing will be occupied by renters in 2020, up slightly from 44% in 2010, according to newly released data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
California is second only to New York with 49.7% of its housing being rented. The District of Columbia had him an outlier at 61.7%.
Nationally, rental housing occupancy was 36.9%, the highest since 1970.
“The increase in renter-occupied units continues to outpace that of owner-occupied units,” the Census Bureau said in a statement.
The states with the lowest renter rates, or the highest rates of home ownership, were West Virginia at 27.4% and Maine at 28.9%.
Hans Johnson, a demographer at the California Institute of Public Policy, said the new data were “not shocking.” California’s high renter rate is largely due to “high housing costs,” Johnson said.
The annual income required to buy a home in Los Angeles surpassed $220,000 last year, according to research by residential real estate firm Redfin. Rising mortgage rates and inflation have reduced household incomes, making it impossible for more and more Los Angeles residents to own a home, where median household income was just over $65,000 in 2020.
High housing costs also contribute to California’s near bottom position in another category, single-person household rates.
new data from Census Bureau In 2020, more than a quarter (27.6%) of all American households had only one person, according to the survey. The rate of people living alone is more than triple the 1940 record level of 7.7%.
According to a Times analysis, California ranks 49th out of 50 states for single-person residence rates, with 23 percent of households living alone with only one person, a percentage that has remained stable for nearly two decades. Only Utah had a lower 20%.
North Dakota had the highest rate of living alone at 32.8%. The District of Columbia’s percentage was an astronomical 43.7%.
In states other than California, Johnson said, “it’s not so hard for single workers to live on their own when rents are much lower or when there are more opportunities to buy a home.”
Another factor, Johnson said, is that California “has a higher immigrant population than the rest of the United States.” “It is more common for immigrant families to live in multigenerational households,” he says.
Utah has the lowest rate of single-person housing due to its high marriage rate and unusually high number of children per household, Johnson said. He attributed some of this trend to Mormon residents, who make up well over half of the state’s population.
The increase in people living alone coincides with increasing social isolation, a worrying trend outlined in a book by US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy. Recent reports.
“Our prevalence of loneliness and isolation has been underestimated as a public health crisis that harms the health of individuals and societies. is a source of happiness and well-being, and helps us live healthier, fuller, and more productive lives,” Murthy said.
Such isolation increases the risk of premature death by more than 60%, and also increases the risk of heart disease, stroke and dementia, according to the report.
To combat increasing isolation, “communities need to design environments that foster connection” and “invest in institutions that bring people together,” says the report.
With more Americans living alone, Arceo, 32, worries about giving his children a home where they can enjoy their own space.
With a 14-year-old going through puberty and a 12-year-old going through it, “they need privacy,” she said.
“It is insane to say that I work for this company and cannot afford to give my children a decent life,” Alceo said.
Christina Alceo is babysitting her grandson Yahir Pinto, 4, in the Panorama City apartment where her daughter, Evelyn Alceo, lives with her four children. One corner of the living room is a bedroom where Evelyn Arceo and Yahir sleep.
(Myung Jae-chung/Los Angeles Times)
She worked as a theme park baker for eight years, but Arceo recalls, “I was homeless for the first year at Universal.” wherever possible.
The bakery is understaffed, so she recently started working “at least an hour of overtime a day,” but that’s not enough, and she “has to choose between paying her car insurance and paying her rent.” she said.
Demographer Johnson pointed to possible hopes for the future. He noted that California has reported a steady decline in population since 2020, which began early in the pandemic. This decline is largely consistent with an increase in housing construction in the state’s suburbs and suburbs.
“If the population decline and housing construction continue in California, at some point the housing shortage should end.”
The construction rush is unlikely to change the conditions of low-wage workers like Arceo.
Looking to the future, she doesn’t have many options.
“I can’t afford to move,” she said.
