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LA’s High Housing Costs Hurt Health
A view of downtown Los Angeles.
(
Grace Widyatmadja
/
NPR
)
Topline:
Over half of Los Angeles County households spend more than 30% of their income on housing, making it difficult to afford health care and nutritious food. That’s according to the county's first health survey of thousands of Angelenos since the start of the pandemic. It’s a 12% increase since the last survey in 2018.
Why it matters: Increased housing costs make it harder for people to afford healthy food and medical care, a situation disproportionately faced by Black and Latino residents in Los Angeles County. The health survey by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health took a deeper look at racial and ethnic health disparities.
Here are a few key findings:
- Asian adults said they were lonely or had suicidal thoughts at a higher rate than other ethnicities.
- Black adults experienced worse health outcomes such as asthma and hypertension than other ethnicities.
- Latino adults were disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 and diabetes than other ethnicities.
Housing costs bite: Almost a third of people living in poverty said they were unable to pay their mortgage or rent in the past two years. That’s a significant increase from 2018. Almost half of adults in poverty said they couldn’t afford healthy food, and over half said they drank a soda daily.
No safe place to play: Almost a third of children who live in poverty in L.A. County live in neighborhoods that were rated as somewhat or very unsafe, according to the survey.
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LA’s High Housing Costs Hurt Health
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