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Housing Precarity in San Diego County

Housing precarity refers to conditions or events which lead to heightened insecurity in a person’s housing status. This could be job loss which reduces a tenant’s ability to pay rent, a notice of eviction served by a property owner who wishes to remove a unit from the rental market, conflicts between property owners and tenants, and more. The need for research on housing precarity is exemplified by a recent Regional Taskforce on Homelessness report which shows that the number of people losing their housing and becoming homeless exceeds the number of people exiting homelessness into stable housing.

Homelessness Hub has undertaken several projects on this topic, with more in early development phases.

StoryMap: Eviction Trends in San Diego

Project Team:

  • Dr. Jennifer M. Nations
  • Michael Yang
  • Zhongqi Zheng

This analysis focuses on trends in formal evictions in San Diego County. We use two measures of formal evictions: unlawful detainer court filings, which are recorded when a property owner files a request with the superior court to evict a tenant, and sheriff lockouts, which are recorded when a property owner obtains a judgement against a tenant and requests that the sheriff execute the forcible removal of tenants at a property. Data was obtained through public records requests made by Homelessness Hub to the San Diego Superior Court and San Diego County Sheriff's Office.

Check out the embedded StoryMap below for a summary of the project, or use this link here to access the StoryMap in fullscreen on ArcGIS Online.

StoryMap: The Impact of Eviction Moratoria in San Diego

Project Team:

  • Dr. Jennifer M. Nations
  • Michael Yang
  • Zhongqi Zheng

This analysis focuses on formal evictions, measured as civil court filings and sheriff orders to forcibly remove tenants through "lockouts." We use data for San Diego County between January, 2018 and December, 2022 to show how the volume and rates of filings and lockouts were impacted by changing local and state policy contexts, in particular eviction moratoria enacted in response to COVID-19.

Check out the embedded StoryMap below for a summary of the project, or use this link here to access the StoryMap in fullscreen on ArcGIS Online.

Mapping Evictions

Eviction is broadly defined as the forcible removal of a tenant by the owner or manager of a housing unit or the voluntary departure of a tenant at the request of the owner or manager (i.e., cash for keys). Eviction is driven by the conditions of poverty but can also exacerbate already existing inequities in housing and poverty. Research on the distribution of evictions is severely lacking, especially in the state of California, due to privacy protections and a lack of data collection by local housing authorities. Our team has filled that gap by accessing counts of unlawful detainer (i.e., eviction) lawsuits through a public records request to the San Diego Superior Court. We created maps of this data showing the rates of eviction by ZIP for each month from January 2018 to September 2021. Through a public records request to the San Diego County Office of the Sheriff, we obtained point data for all forced evictions from January 2020 to March 2021. In early 2023 we will update these maps.

Project Team:

  • Dr. Jennifer M. Nations
  • Julie Wartell
  • Zhongqi Zheng
  • Yao Fu

Understanding and Preventing Housing Instability in San Diego’s Low-income Neighborhoods 

Research over the last few years links eviction with persistent adolescent and adult health problems, including stress that leads to or exacerbates health conditions. What research has not demonstrated is whether increased awareness of their rights can prevent evictions for tenants and/or decrease feelings of stress related to housing precarity. This study is designed to evaluate the impact of Know Your Rights tenant workshops on the health and knowledge of low-income renters in San Diego and to document the housing challenges they face. The Know Your Rights workshops are one aspect of the City of San Diego’s Eviction Prevention Program (EPP). Legal Aid Society of San Diego (LASSD), operator of the EPP through a contract with the San Diego Housing Commission, contracted with the City Heights Community Development Corporation (CHCDC) to conduct outreach to at-risk renters and to register them in informational workshops. Our mixed-methods study began in April, 2022 and will conclude in September, 2023. This study has undergone review by UCSD’s Institutional Review Board for the protection of human subjects, study reference number is #805106.

Evaluation of the San Diego Know Your Rights Tenant Education Program

The Homelessness Hub team evaluated the impact of the Know Your Rights tenant workshops. The infographic provides learning outcomes related to tenant rights and legal procedures for rental housing. To measure knowledge gained from workshops about rights and resources, participants were surveyed before and after workshops. Tenant feedback was taken into consideration for the effectiveness of these workshops.

Tenant Housing Challenges and Policy Priorities

UC San Diego researchers conducted a study to understand the housing challenges and concerns of low-income tenants in southeast San Diego County. The study involved a survey of workshop and interview participants. Interviewed tenants' experiences were categorized into displacement threat types as formal or informal evictions or forced moves. To address the challenges low-income renters face, the Homelessness Hub team and community organizations developed policy priorities.

Project Team:

  • Dr. Jennifer M. Nations
  • Arianna Martinez-Valdívia
  • Jill Liang
  • Morsal Mohammad