A recent poverty report found that one-third of working families in San Diego, California, more than 1 million individuals, live with incomes too low to cover their basic needs. These stark figures are reflected in the city’s skyrocketing homeless population, which has risen nationally from the twelfth largest in 2007 to third in 2016, according to US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
A report published in January by the Center on Policy Initiatives (CPI), Making Ends Meet, highlights the constant and worrying reality for working class San Diegans that employment “does not guarantee enough income to make ends meet.”
The number of working poor thrown into homelessness are growing despite being employed or even having a college degree. The National Coalition on the Homeless reports that nationwide nearly 44 percent of the homeless are employed and the Institute for the Study of Homelessness and Poverty at the Weingart Center, reported that in Los Angeles, nearly 48 percent were high school graduates and 32 percent of the homeless had a bachelor’s degree or higher. Similar statistics were not available to San Diego, but there is every reason to believe these numbers are reflected throughout California’s major cities.
To read more of Norisa Diaz and Renae Cassimeda's article, please click here.
To view the Making Ends Meet infographic is attached.
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