California Pushing Out Low Income Residents

It may come as no surprise to those dealing with California's high housing costs to learn that often low income residents are forced to move. Kiril Kundurazieff describes the circumstances that sent him to Texas, one of the states most likely to receive former Californians, in an article by Phillip Reese of the Sacramento Bee, "He spent more than a decade working in a small bookstore, then at Target, then at a Verizon call center, in Southern California. After some medical issues that hampered his eyesight, he found himself unemployed in Santa Ana, with monthly rent of about $1,000 in 2012." After moving to Texas he was able to get a $10/hr job at Walmart and though he has to commute seven miles on a bike to get there, it's worth it to live in apartment that only costs $500 a month. Arizona, Nevada, and Oregon are also common destinations for poor Americans leaving California.

"The state’s exodus of poor people is notable in Los Angeles and San Francisco counties, which combined experienced a net loss of 250,000 such residents from 2005 through 2015," Reese reports.