COVID Housing: Report Warns Of Looming California Eviction Crisis; 1.1M Households Behind On Rent

CBS San Francisco

January 21, 2021

(CBS SF) – Roughly 20 percent of renter households in California are behind on rent payments, with low-income residents and people of color being hardest hit, according to new research by the Bay Area Equity Atlas.

Since last March, when the COVID-19 pandemic began to surge across the country and local and state governments implemented stay-at-home measures in an attempt to slow its spread, about 1.1 million California households have fallen behind on rent, according to the report released Thursday.

During that time, average estimated rent debt per renter household ballooned to $3,400 and the total rent debt across the state stands at about $3.7 billion, according to “The Coming Wave: COVID-19 Evictions,” which tracks county- and state-level data.

Read more at CBS San Francisco