Applied Research

Deidre’s research on how California defines “disadvantaged communities” has sparked discussion about how poverty is identified and measured. She identified housing costs and other expenses as a factor that is not sufficiently addressed in an area where households can spend more than 50% of their monthly income on housing, well above the 30% maximum many personal finance experts recommend.

As a result, households earning what would be comfortable incomes in other parts of the state or country could be struggling in the Bay Area. For example, in 2019 Alameda County Social Services estimated that a family of three required $98,000 annual income to meet living expenses in the county. To make affordable housing policies work in Bay Area communities with high homeless populations its necessary to understand not just how much households are earning, but how much they are spending to maintain themselves. This information has practical implications for household “economic sustainability”, worker mobility, and workforce stability for low-wage service jobs and careers. It also has implications for what would happen if a large number of workers, such as teachers, decide not to stay in high expense areas. Partnering with policy organizations to address not only homelessness, but retention of people in job classifications whose wages cannot keep pace with housing costs is crucial for community stabilization and sustainable economic growth. Deidre offered practical recommendations to identify actual poverty and noted the implications doing so has on developing effective policies.