Los Angeles has a Housing Crisis and $2,000 Doesn’t buy much Anymore

There are roughly 58,000 people living in vehicles in Los Angeles because they cannot afford housing. To make matters worse, the homeless population has increased 23 percent since last year, even though almost 14,000 people were helped off the streets. The median per capita income in Los Angeles County is less than $30,000 and for households it’s around $55,000, which means that there is not much money left over with the median rental price of a one-bedroom apartment at $1,995 and $2,400 for a multiple bedrooms. In fact, 2 million households pay 30 percent or more of their income on housing. Margaret and her son Chris, who live in their car because they cannot afford housing, stated:

We’re lucky. We’ve got income, and we’ve got the car. There’s a lot of people who are suffering and don’t have that.

Margret and her son are making the most out of their situation, but it is a sad state of affairs when people are forced to resort to living in their vehicle because housing is unaffordable. Meanwhile, other people are barely holding on to their apartment of house, such as Samantha Dorman. Dorman is a single mother who lives in South Pasadena and got a 60-notice notice of building improvements that would come with a roughly 50 percent rent increase, which would more than likely price her out of her apartment eventually. Dorman’s rent jumped to $1,800, which is roughly 75 percent of her pay, but luckily she is able to remain there for now. More affordable housing is needed to avoid situations such as the one that Margret and her son are currently in and to avoid people being forced to move because of increasing rent.

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