Sacramento Households Hit Hard by Evictions

The wave of evictions feared by housing advocates as COVID-19 renter protections came to an end is hitting Sacramento as the last remaining eviction protection measure draws to a close at the end of this month. As stated in an article by Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks and Theresa Clift in The Sacramento Bee, “Typical rents in the Sacramento region increased nearly 20% last year. Even full-time workers struggle.”

“According to an estimate from the California Housing Partnership, a person needs to earn at least $31.25 an hour — or more than twice the minimum wage — to afford the median rent of a two-bedroom home in Sacramento County without spending more than 30% of their pay on housing.” The article continues, “The city’s Tenant Protection Program, which the council adopted in 2019, prohibits landlords from raising rent more than 10%, annually, but does not apply to renters of single-family homes.”

Despite renter protections, more than 1,231 evictions took place in Sacramento County between march 2021 and March 2022, affecting low-income households the most. “About 42% of sheriff lockouts that occurred in the second year of the pandemic took place in a census tract with a poverty rate of 20% or more.” Meanwhile, over 30,000 people who applied for rent relief have not received it—and are not likely to. “The agency said it has processed many of those applications through its wait list, but that it simply doesn’t have the funding required to aid all those households.”