Housing Insecurity Persists For Renters of Color Amid the Covid-19 Pandemic

A newly released report, in conjunction with the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative, the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, and the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, finds that Latino and Asian households in California are behind on rent and lag in access to state rent assistance program.

Using data from the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey and the CA COVID-19 Rent Relief Dashboard, provided by California’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), CNK and colleagues from the partnering centers analyzed renters’ experience with and participation in critical emergency rental assistance programs. The researchers found persistent racial inequalities as Asian and Latino households were severely underrepresented among those who have managed to receive rent relief, compared to non-Latino white renters, even when accounting for income, age, and metropolitan area of residence. Only 25% of rent-distressed Asian American households applied for relief, compared to almost 50% of white renters and 64% of Black renters. The second-lowest rate of rent-distressed households were Latinos at only 39%. While 21% of white households and 20% of Black households received rent relief from the program, just 11% of Asian households and 14% of Latino households did.

Due to the implications of these findings, the authors of this report are urging California lawmakers to consider maintaining benefit programs like rental assistance and other safety-net initiatives until unemployment numbers for people of color in California drop below pre-pandemic levels.

See full report here: Housing Insecurity Persists for Renters of Color Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic