A new report from the California Housing Partnership finds that rent affordability remains out of reach for the lowest income households. Report highlights include:

• Extremely low-income households (30% AMI) cannot afford average rents in any county
• Very low-income households (50% AMI) can only afford average rents in 8 counties
• Lower-income households (60% AMI) can afford average rents in 18 counties
• Low-income households (80% AMI) can afford average rents in 46 counties
• Median-income households (100% AMI) can afford average rents in 56 of the 58 counties
• 60% of zip codes are affordable to median-income households
• 30% of zip codes are affordable to low-income households

The analysis concludes that state and local leaders should continue to prioritize scarce affordable housing resources for Californians at the lowest income levels first or risk further increasing the number of households living in poverty or without a home.

NEW! The 2025 report also features the Partnership’s newly developed “Where Can You Afford to Rent in 2025?” interactive mapping tool. This tool allows the user to input their household income to determine which zip codes they can or cannot afford, as well as how much more they would need to make to afford the average 2-bedroom asking rent. >> Explore the tool here.