The view from Terrace Hill looks more expensive than ever before. Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock.
San Luis Obispo housing affordability has long been a common issue for both families and recently graduated San Luis Obispo High School students.
The price of renting or buying a place to live in the city have both exponentially increased over the past years, and with San Luis Obispo now being in the top ten most expensive places to live in California, the accessibility of living here has become extremely limited.
Not only this, but the city is also slow to expand and build new homes or large apartment buildings due to strict construction laws in the area that dictate such things as apartment size and number of building stories.
“There’s an extreme lack of affordable housing in SLO. It’s all single family homes, you scarcely see things such as studio apartments, or other such housing a regular person could afford,” said junior Lucy Field.
This is not only due to the mostly stagnant demographics of the city’s age range and diversity, but also due to the high quality of living and desirability for new residents and college students.
Even if an influx of Cal Poly students every September does serve to diversify SLO in some ways, the effect of their presence only seems to worsen the housing crisis, making things less affordable due to increasing demand and rent prices while they’re in town.
When landlords choose to rent to Cal Poly students (as most do) instead of to singles or small families, typically four to six students live together in order to handle this large financial burden.
“The only way I can pay for rent right now is because I’m sharing the cost of a house with four other roommates,” said 2020 SLOHS graduate Laura Elliott.
With this being so common, there is no precedent for owners to lower their rent prices for people who cannot afford it or who don’t wish to live with as many roommates.
Unfortunately this leads to many SLOHS seniors and graduates feeling as if they have no chance of being able to afford living in SLO on their own.
In a recent Expressions poll, SLOHS students overwhelmingly stated that affording even a small apartment on their own at the current prices was far out of reach.
Students who stated this also tended to say that they would not continue living here after their high school graduations.
Since many graduates seem to decide to move out of SLO for school or because they cannot afford the cost of living, this town is not improving on the issue of housing quickly enough.
“I think having caps on student rent prices would help, but I don’t know what a realistic solution could be,” said Elliott.
Fortunately, there are many different solutions being discussed in order to reduce these problems, with community members gathering support for various rent controls to maybe even eventually present to city council.
There is also a current effort to form a tenants union of SLO, modeled after other unions like ones in Los Angeles in order to better protect and fight for the rights and wants of renters in the city.
SLOHS graduates deserve to be able to easily consider all their options after high school, including living in the town where many of them have grown up.
Sources: calpoly.edu, slotribune.com, latenantsunion.org, Expressions Poll of 148 students on October 12.
