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2024

Renter Action Fact Sheet: Salinas

The City of Salinas is working on a rental stabilization ordinance. This fact sheet provides a comprehensive overview of housing affordability in Salinas, highlighting the housing and economic challenges renters face.

Key Findings

  • More than half (53 percent) of households in Salinas are renters, a proportion that has grown significantly over the years.
  • With rents increasing at a rate much faster than incomes, many renters are struggling to afford their housing costs.
  • As a result, a majority (52 percent) of the city's renters are now considered rent-burdened, spending more than 30 percent of their income on housing.
  • Rent affordability is a racial and gender equity issue, with people of color, especially women of color, more likely to be renters and rent-burdened.
  • If renters only paid what they could afford, each rent-burdened household would save a yearly average of $8,300.

About the Salinas Rental Stabilization Ordinance

If passed, the ordinance drafted by the Salinas Housing & Land Use Committee will:
• Implement reasonable rent stabilization,
• Provide protections against arbitrary and unjust evictions,
• Ensure healthy living conditions for renters, and
• Prevent tenant harassment.

Additional Information

Partners

This fact sheet was created by the Bay Area Equity Atlas — a partnership between the San Francisco Foundation, PolicyLink, and the USC Equity Research Institute. It was developed to support the housing advocacy efforts of Public Advocates and BHC Monterey County, a member of the Salinas Coalition for Housing Rights.