Orange County officials are trying to prevent people from falling into homelessness through rental assistance programs amid an uptick in evictions and an increase in housing costs.
The preventive approach comes as the county is expected to do its biennial count of homeless people this week and as local and state reports paint a dire situation for renters in Orange County and across California.
Cesar Covarrubias, executive director of the Kennedy Commission, a nonprofit group aimed at spurring low-income housing production, said rents continue to be unaffordable in Orange County while income for working class families haven’t gone up.
“People continue to double up and triple up to be able to afford the high rents in Orange County so that that continues to be a challenge,” he said in a Thursday phone interview.
He also said some are having to decide if they’re going to pay the rent, buy groceries or fill up their gas tanks.
At Tuesday’s upcoming Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisor Doug Chaffee is looking to use half a million in district discretionary funds towards an emergency rental assistance pilot program in partnership with the Friendly Center.
“With inflation, rent and housing cost burdens, it is crucial to establish a new emergency rental assistance program for households in under-resourced communities,” reads a staff report.
“By prioritizing assistance towards those who are at risk of becoming homeless, this program will help serve as a prevention strategy.”
Earlier this month, supervisors decided to move forward with a one year $3 million homeless prevention pilot program that would dish out money to up to 200 households to keep them from falling behind on rent, utilities and other expenses.
The pilot program was voted on after a study by the nonprofit United Way that found over 3,000 OC residents were evicted from their homes in 2022.
[Read: Orange County Approves $3 Million Homeless Prevention Pilot Program]
The study by United Way found that people of color and women are at higher risk of eviction than any other groups.
According to the study, Black people compromise 3% of renters in OC, yet Black renters make up 9% of households who are receiving emergency rental assistance.
The study also found that 60% of households that received an eviction notice were headed by women.
What Will it Take to Lower Homeless Trends?
Covarrubias said while the pilot programs are necessary and will help provide temporary relief to families in need and keep them off the street, there’s still a lack of affordable housing – what advocates have said for years was needed to address homelessness in the long run.
“The county has an opportunity to be a leader also in that space,” he said. “It has now come time to also realize that we need to address the affordable housing crisis in a more comprehensive way and figure out what roles the county and the cities need to play in that.”
Covarrubias said more cities can implement affordable housing requirements for residential developments and the county could look at putting an affordable housing bond on the ballot to produce affordable homes like in Santa Clara county.
Costa Mesa is in the middle of considering mandating affordable housing in new developments – commonly known as an inclusionary housing ordinance.
[Read: Costa Mesa to Require Affordable Homes in Residential Developments]
David Duran, a founding member of the People’s Homeless Task Force, said in a Thursday phone interview that anything that keeps people housed is a good thing, but county officials have failed to address housing affordability.
“The monies that they use to help end the unhoused issues here in Orange County – they don’t go to that. They go to enforcement, they go to other other places, and the most vulnerable are left to just fend for themselves,” he said.
Duran agreed that an affordable housing bond could go a long way in OC. He also said cities should seriously consider rent control.
OC Cities Roll Out Eviction Protections Ahead of State
As the housing crisis worsens, local officials across Orange County are stepping in.
Buena Park and Costa Mesa City Council members moved to implement eviction safeguards for residents last year as some residents pushed for rent control.
The safeguards in part protect tenants from being evicted by landlords who want to substantially renovate the home without first acquiring the proper building permits – getting ahead of a new state law expected to go into effect in April.
[Read: The Year of The Renter: Orange County Tenants Get Some Relief]
The move comes as residents across the county last year called for rent control in places like Buena Park and Costa Mesa – a city where staff say about half of residents spend more than 30% of their income on housing.
As part of the safeguards in Costa Mesa, officials allocated $300,000 from federal COVID bailout dollars to rental assistance providers to help people facing eviction.
On the Brink of Eviction: The True Cost of Housing in OC
A 2023 report by the nonprofit California Housing Partnership found that residents have to make roughly $51 an hour to afford the average monthly rent of $2,700 in Orange County.
The report also found that more than 80% of extremely low income households in OC are paying more than half of their income on housing.
According to 2023 income limits from the state Housing and Community Development department, the median household income is $127,800 and if a household of four makes less than $43,050 a year, they are considered extremely low income.
The median gross rent in Orange County is roughly $2,250 and the poverty rate is about 10%, according to the U.S. Census.
The County’s 2022 point in time count shows that there were 5,718 homeless people in OC, with 3,057 of them were unsheltered.
The next point in time count is expected to take place this week.
Meanwhile, people already living on the streets grapple with death.
Last year, the Sheriff’s department released a report that showed close to 400 homeless people died in 2021.
Duran, who is also a founder of Housing is a Human Right OC, said that about 500 homeless people died on Orange County streets last year.
The group plans to go to Tuesday’s Supervisor meeting and read the names of the people who died.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.
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