Insights and Analyses

• The high cost of housing affects immigrants and their U.S.-born counterparts alike. In 2021, throughout California, 54% of all renters and 31% of all owners were burdened, spending more than 30% of their income on housing.

• In California, more than half (57%) of immigrants who rent were burdened by housing costs in 2021.

• When disaggregating by status, a higher proportion of undocumented renters and owners spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing. Across the state, in 2021, 63% of undocumented renters and 41% of undocumented homeowners were burdened by housing costs.

• California’s high cost of living—even prior to the pandemic—continues to burden families and communities. The California Budget and Policy Center found that between January to April 2022, more than half (51%) of low-income renters who reported housing hardship were households with children. Further, prior to COVID-19, among renters in households with undocumented Californians in 2019, about 58% were burdened by housing costs and 32% were severely burdened.

• A January 2021 report by the state’s Legislative Analyst Office on the impact of COVID-19 on renters and homeowners, found that low-income households, who are more likely to be renters, experienced more job losses during the pandemic; meaning they were disproportionately burdened by housing costs. The increase in unemployment (UI) benefits and stimulus checks helped some unemployed workers avoid evictions or late rent payments; however, undocumented immigrants continued to remain in precarious standing as they were excluded from receiving federal aid.

• An analysis of statewide eviction filings between 2013 and 2023 found that while eviction filings remained low between March 2020 and June 2022—due to the statewide eviction moratorium, local tenant protections, and other pandemic aid programs—there was an uptick in eviction filings after the state moratorium ended; a number higher than the years prior to the pandemic in several of the most populous counties in the state.

• More than 171,000 Californians in early 2022 experienced homelessness, according to estimates by the California Budget and Policy Center. Racial disparities among the unhoused population persist, as Black Californians comprised about 5% of the state’s population in 2021, yet they comprised about 27% of unhoused people who were assisted by a homeless service provider during Fiscal Year (FY) 2021-2022. Native American and Pacific Islander Californians also disproportionately experienced homelessness.

• The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimated that in 2022 there was a shortage of over 972,300 affordable and available rental units for Californians who are categorized as extremely low-income renters.

The Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) brings together working-class Asian immigrant and refugee communities in the Bay Area and Los Angeles to develop and fight for progressive solutions to address affordable housing, environmental justice, and economic justice.

APEN has worked for over 30 years to build the leadership of Asian immigrants and refugees, beginning with helping communities address environmental hazards in their neighborhoods in Richmond and expanding their work to fight for affordable housing preservation in a rapidly gentrifying Oakland Chinatown. Their work also includes collaborating with other organizations across the state and nation to help build a shared vision around environmental, social, and economic justice through power building strategies like civic engagement and policy advocacy. Locally, as rent skyrockets and low-income Asian families continue to struggle to find quality affordable housing in the Bay Area – in particular Vietnamese renters and Korean homeowners – APEN continues to work with community members to propose policy solutions that address the need to preserve affordable housing and create safer living conditions in working-class communities like Oakland, Chinatown, and Richmond.

For example, in 2019, APEN won a 16-year campaign to ensure a new Oakland luxury waterfront development included 465 units of on-site affordable rental housing for seniors and families making between 30 and 60 percent of the area median income. That same year, APEN also helped push forward AB 1482, housing legislation that would cap rent increases and protect people from eviction. APEN's community leaders also successfully advocated for the Healthy Homes Act (AB 1232), which includes provisions for a program to utilize existing energy efficiency funds to help renovate the homes of working class families and conduct research into whether these kinds of statewide environmental programs cause displacement. Additionally, APEN advocated for a citywide emergency moratorium on tenant evictions in Oakland in order to help protect tenants during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as disbursing $60,000 in emergency funds for immigrant and refugee community members. More recently, APEN expanded their organizing work into communities of the South Bay area of Los Angeles.

APEN is also a key leader in environmental justice in the Bay Area and throughout California. In recent years, they have continued their decades-long fight against pollution in Richmond by building the organizing power of Asian communities and forming alliances with other organizations to end statewide policies that allow for further use of fossil fuels in frontline communities. APEN has also created pathways for local communities to secure climate resources, including by helping a senior affordable housing complex get state funding to install solar panels and assisting to secure public investments to build a resilience center in Oakland Chinatown that can keep communities safe during climate disasters like extreme heat and flooding. For more on APEN’s work, please visit their website here. Read APEN’s most recent joint report on building resilience in the most vulnerable communities to respond to climate disasters here. 

Photo credit: Asian Pacific Environmental Network

Resources

• Organizations: 

  • Housing California

  • National Housing Law Project

  • National Immigration Law Center

  • National Low Income Housing Coalition

• Reports:

  • Latino and Asian Households in California are Behind on Rent and Behind in Access to State Relief Program

  • Housing Insecurity Persists for Renters of Color Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

  • America’s Rental Housing

  • California’s 17 Million Renters Face Housing Instability and Inequity Before and After COVID-19

  • Fair Housing Trends Report 2021

  • Facing History, Uprooting Inequity: A Path to Housing Justice in California

  • How Do Renters Cope with Unaffordability? Household-Level Impacts of Rental Cost Burdens in Los Angeles

  • Housing Discrimination Against Racial and Ethnic Minorities 2012

• Articles:

  • The Impact of Housing Experience on the Well-Being of 1.5-Generation Immigrants: The Case of Millennial and Gen-Z Renters in Southern California

  • Rental Affordability, Coping Strategies, and Impacts in Diverse Immigrant Communities

  • California’s Population Shifts May Lead to New Income Divides

  • Baked-in problems with California’s rent relief problem need fixing

  • Thousands of Californians in limbo as eviction protections end

  • California can’t take immigrants for granted

  • California’s Housing Divide

  • Oakland immigrants face illegal evictions and barriers to rent relief

  • Policymakers Can Prioritize Better Ways to Support Children of Immigrants through Housing Assistance

  • These essential workers face evictions and could become homeless during pandemic

  • Neither Human Nor Ghost: Chinese Immigrants Scrape By In San Gabriel Valley’s Boarding Houses