Palo Alto Planning and Transportation Commissioner Kate Vershov Downing recently made headlines when she said she was forced to quit her job and move to Santa Cruz because her family couldn’t afford a house in the rich Silicon Valley community. But a recent article by the Guardian argues that Santa Cruz is actually the Golden State’s least affordable metro area—at least by some metrics.
Housing development has not kept pace with the growth of the population, which is now 62,000 in the city and 270,000 total in Santa Cruz County. The county has added roughly one housing unit for every 10 new residents in recent years, according to county housing manager Julie Conway.
At the same time, the top five occupations in the area are low-wage jobs in retail, food service and cleaning, paying between $9.06 and $11.30 an hour, according to 2015 research. As a result, 63% of renters live in unaffordable housing, meaning their rent is more than 30% of their income.
Just as in Palo Alto and countless other cities, critics complain that Santa Cruz is not building enough homes. That problem is exacerbated by a high demand for housing driven by the nearby tech boom.
The article goes on to describe California as a “catastrophe” and a “monster” swallowing regular renters and homebuyers whole.
You can read the whole piece here.