Households with income less than 30 percent of the area median income – are at the highest risk of homelessness. These households are known as extremely low-income households.
In 2017, Los Angeles opened its waitlist for housing choice vouchers. It had been closed for new applicants for 13 years. Households selected to receive vouchers would only have to pay 30 percent of their income in rent, with the rest paid by the government (taxpayers).
There were 600,000 applicants for just 20,000 spots on the list.
And this was 4 years ago. Imagine how long the list would be, considering the problems with the pandemic from this past year, as well as increased immigration (which increases the demand for affordable housing, and competition for jobs), rising rents and housing costs, inflation, and other issues.
Homelessness will increase. We need to prepare for the future.
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