Unemployment has fallen, but thousands of families still struggle to leave the specter of eviction behind

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced California’s unemployment rate fell to historically low levels last July, adding the biggest job gain since February and the second-highest since August 2021.

While the governor praises the creation of thousands of jobs, activists and workers on the streets argue that this increase is not reflected in reality due to the high cost of living.

Those affected include Gabriel Benitez, who has lived in Lincoln Heights with his family for more than 19 years. Until recently, he rented a two-room apartment, which he shared with his wife and two teenage children. However, in mid-July, for reasons still unknown, their apartment caught fire, leaving them on the street.

The family lived in the open air in the parking lot in front of the building for a week, until, thanks to donations, they managed to find a hotel where they could spend the night. But they have been there for more than a month and still do not know when they will be able to move into the apartment.

“We paid $900 something for an apartment that burned down and right now the cheapest apartment we can find is $1,600 for a one bedroom apartment and they are very old,” Benitez said. “Besides, several one-room apartments don’t let four people in, and two-room apartments cost more than $2,000.”

Benitez is the only breadwinner in the family, he works as a loader. His eldest son entered college this Monday and his youngest daughter entered high school last week. In addition, since the hotel where they live does not have a kitchen, the family has to buy cooked food, which costs the family about $150 a day.

Benítez said that since their house was set on fire, they have become more involved with tenants’ organizations, where they advise them on their rights. There you have heard several stories where they say that they want to evict tenants in order to rent the same apartment at a higher price, but the tenants do not know.

“We support people and I tell them not to be afraid that we should use the information they give us to try to justify the rights, especially when we see how high the rent is,” Benitez said.

$15 very late

Lupita Gonzalez, an organizer for the California Alliance for Community Empowerment (ACCE-LA), has seen people who turn to the group for help suffer.

As an example, he cited a building in Huntington Park, whose owner is currently looking to evict longtime tenants in order to charge higher prices. Two of them have vacated their studio apartments for about $800 a month, and this one is renting for $1,300.

“And it’s very small, it doesn’t have a kitchen, and the bathroom is very small,” Gonzalez said.

He added that those most affected continue to be minimum-wage earners or seniors who live on a fixed income from Social Security.

Experts point out that the ideal would be for a working person to use 30% of their earnings to pay for their house. So, if a person earns $15 an hour, working 40 hours a week is $2,400 a month. If taxes are deducted—depending on each individual case—this person will take home about $2,000.

If the 30% rule applied to a $2,000 salary, people would have to pay about $600 a month in rent.

“That would be in an ideal world, but it’s actually very difficult to achieve and even worse if it’s subsidized housing,” Gonzalez said. “There is a waiting list of up to 15 years.”

Currently, the Benitez family must have an income of about $90,000 a year to be able to pay about $2,250 in rent every month.

Details about unemployment.

Gov. Newsom’s statement last week indicated that California added 84,800 nonfarm payroll jobs in July, the largest increase in jobs in the state since February and the second largest since August 2021, bringing total nonfarm payrolls to reached 17,618,100 jobs in the state.

In July, the state accounted for 16.1% of new jobs in the country. California has regained all the private sector jobs lost during the recession caused by the pandemic. The number of California employees increased by 23,000 people, which is the seventh consecutive month of growth in employment in the state.