When it comes to the housing situation in Santa Ana and Orange County the news is mostly grim despite attempts by the City of Santa Ana to claim that we are making progress.
Here is what the California Housing Partnership is reporting:
- 129,693 low-income renter households in Orange County do not have access to an affordable home.
- State and federal funding for housing production and preservation in Orange County is $166 million, a 60% decrease from the year prior.
- 82% of extremely low-income (ELI) households in Orange County are paying more than half of their income on housing costs compared to 3% of moderate-income households.
- Renters in Orange County need to earn $53.83 per hour – 3.4 times the state minimum wage – to afford the average monthly asking rent of $2,799.
- In 2023 in Orange County, there were only 5,466 beds available in the interim and permanent housing supply for persons experiencing homelessness.
Santa Ana does offer a variety of housing resources:
- Project-Based Vouchers that provide financial assistance: https://www.santa-ana.org/…/housing-authority-waiting…/
- Affordable housing opportunities: https://www.santa-ana.org/affordable-housing-resources/
- My First Home Program down payment assistance: https://www.santa-ana.org/my-first-home/
- Renter Protections that limit rent increases and provide eviction protections: https://www.santa-ana.org/departments/rent-stabilization/
- To learn more about housing resources please visit https://www.santa-ana.org/housing-resources/.
The California Housing Partnership is asking California residents to sign on to their Roadmap Home 2030, which is a bold, comprehensive plan to create more than a million affordable homes and end homelessness in California.
There is NO way that “moderate-income households” are only paying 3% for housing expense. This must be a typo, and likely was meant to be 30%. According to my salary, I’m in the top 6 or 7% of earners in CA, have a 3.5% interest rate on a 550k mortgage, and it’s approx. 26% of my take home salary. Even at Gross Monthly it’s 17%. The article is tangentially correct, that housing is too expensive relative to earnings, but I wonder what other inaccuracies there are here.
Hmmm. I quoted that from the site we linked to.
Instead of focusing on minimum wage for hourly fast-food workers, we should focus on raising median wage with meaningful, productive work opportunities. Not flipping burgers for $20 an hour. The, housing and home ownership becomes affordable again, people wouldn’t need to be pigeonholed in stigmatized low-income housing, and real estate would be for the people, not investors. It’s a daunting task that makes too much sense, so sadly none of our politicians are interested in changing the status quo that is built around their interests and the interests of their donors– all of whom are wealthy landowners. CA is a haven for the rich, with a poor subclass to serve them. The American Dream is dead in CA. Sad.