San Diego is worst place in the country for Black renters, new report shows

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According to a new study by Zillow, an online real estate company, black renters in San Diego are more burdened with rent than anywhere else in the country.

Using a combination of census data and Zillow’s observed rent index, Zillow economists found that tenants in San Diego Black, on average, spend nearly 53% of their income on rent.

A household is considered to be rent debited if 30% of its income is used for housing. With this metric, black tenants in San Diego are not only burdened, but also heavily burdened with the costs.

RELATED: Black and Latino families continue to take the great economic toll of the U.S. pandemic

“Frankly, it’s not surprising,” said Gabrielle Hines, a school counselor at Kearny Mesa.

Hines is Black and grew up in the Skyline neighborhood of San Diego with a family. She has seen many of her family and neighbors being pushed out of the neighborhood due to rising rents.

“People almost feel like they’re not good enough to live in the neighborhood they come from,” she said.

RELATED: Why People Can Help Pay Rent May Fight the Pandemic

She recently moved to La Mesa with her husband and three year old son. She found a deal for a three-bedroom apartment for $ 1,800 that she couldn’t miss.

Any other housing she could find in Skyline and other neighborhoods in southeast San Diego was too expensive. She says all of the three-bedroom apartments she looked at in the area cost $ 2,600-3,000.

Hines recently got a raise and makes $ 28 an hour after completing her Masters. She estimates that she and her husband, who is an electrician, make around $ 100,000 a year, which means they pay 22% of their income for rent. But they are still fighting.

“It doesn’t feel like we’re making really good money when the rent is this high,” she said. “It still feels like we’re collecting our bills and still living from paycheck to paycheck.”

According to Zumper, an online rental marketplace, the average rent in San Diego is currently $ 2,195 per month. San Diego is expensive for renters of all walks of life.

Source: Zillow

Affordability of Zillow Rent by Race

“For example, we saw in San Diego that the pandemic increased the rental burden in households,” said Nancy Wu, the Zillo economist who led the research study.

Wu found that Latin American renters in San Diego pay an average of 39% of their income for rent, while Asian renters pay 33% and white renters pay 34%.

Still, black tenants in San Diego are by far the most heavily burdened by rent. And they spend 18% more of their income on rent than black households across the country.

“Affordability is why we see the largest discrepancy in the largest rent burden for black renters in San Diego,” said Wu.

According to Wu, these inequalities reflect historical racial discrimination combined with low household incomes and rising rents. In other words, rents are high and wages are not catching up.

In a statement to KPBS, Mayor Todd Gloria said, “The results of this study are annoying, but not surprising,” adding that his top priority as Mayor is “making sure that all San Diegans have a roof over their heads at a reasonable price Have a head ”. Afford.”

Mayor spokesman David Rolland said the city has already invested in rental assistance programs and launched several business and youth development programs for the colored communities of San Diego.

But the results of these solution-oriented programs take time, and right now, tenants like Hines in San Diego are feeling economic pressures to be black.

“We’re pretty stressed,” she said. “It feels like we’re barely making it.”

San Diego is the worst place in the country for black renters, a new report shows

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