UNITED LIFT - harivco.org · UNITED LIFT DATA ANALYSIS JULY 20, 2020 3 The United Lift Rental Assistance Program is a coordinated effort between Riverside County, Inland SoCal United

UNITED LIFT DATA ANALYSISJUNE 2020 APPLICATION PERIOD

July 20, 2020

Prepared by Lift To RiseIn collaboration with Inland SoCal United Way Made possible by the County of Riverside

2UNITED LIFT DATA ANALYSIS | JULY 20, 2020

Key Takeaways

• Of the 3,853 applicants, 2,467 (64%) are eligible for assistance, pending verification of eligibility documents.

• Among pre-eligible1 applicants, 46% report being Extremely Low-Income (earning 30% or below Area Median Income (AMI)), 27% report being Very Low-Income (earning between 30% and 50% AMI), and 18% report being Low-Income (earning between 50% and 80% AMI).

• Among pre-eligible applicants, 56% live in the United Way catchment area (Northwest County, Southwest County, and Hemet-San Jacinto regions) and 44% live in the Lift to Rise catchment area (East County and Pass regions).

• The five cities/communities with the most pre-eligible applicants are Riverside (400), Moreno Valley (278), Indio (177), Cathedral City (145), and Palm Springs (142).

• The five cities/communities with the highest number of pre-eligible applicants per capita (per 10,000 residents) are Thermal (500.4), Mountain Center (158.7), Mecca (50.2), Idyllwild-Pine Cove (44.7), and Desert Hot Springs (41.9).

• The most common employment occupation categories of pre-eligible applicants are food preparation and food service (14%), healthcare practitioners and support (11%), sales and retail (9%), cleaning, janitorial, and housekeeping (9%), and personal care and service (8%).

• Among pre-eligible applicants, 52% report being out of work due to COVID-19, 15% are working part-time, and 12% are working full-time, yet only 25% are receiving Unemployment Insurance benefits.

• The average unpaid rent balance among pre-eligible applicants is $2,547.32, and 36% are three or more months behind on rent.

• At the time of application 79% of pre-eligible applicants stated that they would not be able to pay rent in July.

• Pre-eligible applicants are disproportionately Black and Hispanic/Latinx and disproportionately female.

1 “Pre-eligible” refers to applicants who stated that: 1) their address is within Riverside County, 2) they pay rent, 3) they are behind on rent payments in any month(s) between April 2020 and November 2020, and 4) they can attribute their inability to pay rent to the COVID-19 pandemic. United Lift is currently screening all pre-eligible applicants to verify eligibility.


The United Lift Rental Assistance Program is a coordinated effort between Riverside County, Inland SoCal United Way, and Lift To Rise to keep Riverside County families and residents housed by providing one-time direct rental assistance to households that are behind on rent payments due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The program will last from June until November, 2020 and will assist 10,000 households. Riverside County has allocated $33 million of federal funds for this program – $30 million from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and $3 million from the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program – making it one of the most generous emergency rental assistance programs in the state in terms of funding per capita. Other organizations such as the Desert Healthcare District and the Regional Access Project Foundation have also contributed resources to support this effort.

This Data Analysis will present findings from the June, 2020 application period, during which United Lift received a total of 3,853 applications and deemed 64% (2,467) of those applications “pre-eligible” for assistance, pending verification of eligibility documentation. Data collected from the applications reveals that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe economic impact on households across the county. More than half (52%) of June’s 2,467 eligible applicants report being out of work due to the pandemic, nearly four in five (79%) believe they will not be able to pay next month’s rent, and more than a third (36%) are already at least three months behind on payments. The data also shows that while monthly rent prices have not changed, average monthly income post-March is roughly half of what it was before the pandemic began.

According to the data, the pandemic’s impact is not distributed evenly across the county’s residents – nearly half (46%) of eligible applicants are considered Extremely Low-Income (earning at or below 30% of Area Median Income) based on their reported 2019 household incomes. Eligible applicants are also disproportionately Black and Hispanic/Latinx, and two-thirds identify as female. And, in terms of geographical distribution, the cities/communities with the highest number of applications per capita are concentrated in the Coachella Valley and Hemet-San Jacinto regions. The United Lift Rental Assistance Program seeks to keep the county’s most impacted and vulnerable families and residents housed in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The data analyzed in this report comes directly from United Lift’s June 2020 rental assistance application, administered via Google Forms.2 The application window lasted from June 15 until June 25, 2020. United Lift offered the 67-question application in both English and Spanish and asked applicants about household composition, rent details and landlord information, income, employment, housing quality, demographic information, contact information, and the extent to which COVID-19 has impacted them. Data on population counts comes from the US Census Bureau, and data on countywide COVID-19 cases comes from Riverside University Health Systems - Public Health.

2 All data collected was self-reported by the applicants via the application, which means that applicant responses are subject to misreporting. This analysis does not include information on the verified applications, which are still being processed, and therefore includes potentially misreported data. Subsequent reports will detail findings of preceding months based on verified data.

Introduction & Background

Data & Methodology


After the application period closed, United Lift cleaned and organized the data using both Microsoft Excel and STATA software. Data cleaning included removing duplicate applications from the same address, reformatting the data for analysis purposes, and tagging pre-eligible applications. After cleaning and organizing the data, United Lift used ArcGIS and Tableau software to create the maps and other data visualizations included in this report.

The following section will detail notable findings and trends that appeared in the data. These findings fit into the following categories: applications, geographical distribution, income, employment, rent and housing characteristics, and demographics and household composition.

Key Findings & Implications

APPLICATIONS

After data cleaning and organization, the applicant pool contained 3,853 applications. Of these total applications, 2,467 (64%) were pre-eligible for assistance. At this time, United Lift is still processing payments and thus does not have complete information on how many of the pre-eligible applicants will be receiving assistance. July’s report will detail how many of June’s pre-eligible applicants were verified as truly eligible, how much each received in assistance, and the total amount of funding disbursed to June applicants.

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION

The five cities/communities3 with the highest number of total applicants are Riverside (667), Moreno Valley (416), Indio (303), Palm Springs (248), and Coachella (210). Riverside and Moreno Valley are both in the Northwest County region and are the two most populous cities in the county, which helps to explain their high number of applications. Indio, Palm Springs, and Coachella, however, are all in the Coachella Valley and are much smaller cities compared to Riverside and Moreno Valley. The relatively high number of applications from these cities could suggest that COVID-19 has especially impacted households in the Coachella Valley. It could also suggest that United Lift’s outreach efforts to potential applicants have been more effective in the Coachella Valley than in other areas of the county. See Figure 1, below for a map of the geographical distribution of the applications.

3 This report uses the term “cities/communities” because all of the maps in this section show both the cities and the unincorporated Census-Designated Places in Riverside County.


4 These maps and tables do not include the 18 applications that came from outside of Riverside County. Those applications came from Rancho Cucamonga (4), Bloomington (2), Colton (2), Hesperia (2), Fontana (1), Grand Terrace (1), Inglewood (1), Panorama City (1), Running Springs (1), Upland (1), and Wilmington (1), all of which are in California but not in Riverside County.

Figure 1. Geographical Distribution of All Applications Received4

Similar to Figure 1, Figure 2, below, shows a high volume of applications from the Northwest County and Coachella Valley regions. The five cities/communities with the most pre-eligible applications are Riverside (400), Moreno Valley (278), Indio (177), Cathedral City (145), and Palm Springs (142). The cities/communities with high volumes of pre-eligible applications appear to be the same as those with high volumes of total applications, suggesting that the rate of pre-eligibility is consistent across the county.

Figure 2. Geographical Distribution of Pre-Eligible Applications


City Total Applications

Pre-Eligible Applications

Riverside 667 400Moreno Valley 416 278Indio 303 177Palm Springs 248 142Coachella 210 130Cathedral City 201 145Hemet 197 124Corona 196 137Desert Hot Springs 182 121Palm Dessert 162 106Murrieta 101 68Lake Elsinore 101 67La Quinta 100 65Perris 99 65Temecula 74 45San Jacinto 64 49Jurupa Valley 54 24Menifee 50 32Eastvale 40 28Beaumont 39 29Banning 27 17Wildomar 19 14Blythe 18 10Rancho Mirage 11 6Norco 8 5Canyon Lake 8 6Calimesa 2 2Indian Wells 2 2

Census-Designated Place

Total Applications

Pre-Eligible Applications

Thermal 99 68Mecca 58 36Thousand Palms 17 12Bermuda Dunes 14 8Idyllwild-Pine Cove 13 11Winchester 12 10Anza 5 4Homeland 4 3Whitewater 4 3North Shore 3 2Cherry Valley 2 2Romoland 2 1Cabazon 1 1Desert Edge 1 1Mountain Center 1 1Ripley 1 0

Figure 3. Total and Pre-Eligible Applications by City Figure 4. Total and Pre-Eligible Applications by Census-Designated Place5

5 This figure does not show the Census-Designated Places that had 0 applications: Aguanga, Coronita, Crestmore Heights, Desert Center, Desert Palms, East Hemet, El Cerrito, El Sobrante, French Valley, Good Hope, Green Acres, Highgrove, Home Gardens, Indio Hills, Lake Mathews, Lake Riverside, Lakeland Village, Lakeview, March ARB, Mead Valley, Meadowbrook, Mesa Verde, Nuevo, Oasis, Sky Valley, Temescal Valley, Valle Vista, Vista Santa Rosa, Warm Springs, and Woodcrest.

See Figures 3 and 4, below, for the number of both total and pre-eligible applications from each city and Census-Designated Place, respectively.


6 Per capita measures are based on the US Census Bureau’s July 1, 2019 population estimates for cities, and the American Community Surey 2018 5-Year Estimates for Census-Designated Places that are not incorporated cities.

In addition to examining the absolute numbers of both total and pre-eligible applications, United Lift also looked at applications per capita.6 This allows for a comparison in which applications from each city/community are measured accounting for their different population sizes.

The five cities/communities with the highest number of total applications per 10,000 residents are: Thermal (728.5), Mountain Center (158.7), Mecca (80.8), Desert Hot Springs (63.0), and Idyllwild-Pine Cove (52.9). It is important to note that, while the absolute number of applications from these cities/communities is relatively low, they are small communities in terms of population, which drives up their per capita rate. The fact that the cities/communities with the highest number of applications per capita speaks are concentrated in the Coachella Valley and the Hemet-San Jacinto region speaks to a greater and more urgent need for rental assistance in these areas. See Figure 5, below, for a map of total applications per 10,000 residents in the cities/communities across the county.

Figure 5. Geographical Distribution of All Applications Received, Per 10,000 Residents


Figure 6. Geographical Distribution of Pre-Eligible Applications, Per 10,000 Residents

Like with Figure 5, Figure 6 reveals that the cities/communities with the highest number of pre-eligible applications per 10,000 residents are concentrated in the Coachella Valley and Hemet-San Jacinto regions. The five cities/communities with the highest number of pre-eligible applicants per capita (per 10,000 residents) are Thermal (500.4), Mountain Center (158.7), Mecca (50.2), Idyllwild-Pine Cove (44.7), and Desert Hot Springs (41.9). These high per capita rates in small communities suggests that the less populous cities/communities of the county, especially in the Coachella Valley and Hemet-San Jacinto regions, are at a particularly high risk of needing rental assistance.


CityTotal

Applications per 10,000 residents

Pre-Eligible Applications per 10,000 residents

Desert Hot Springs 63.02 41.90Palm Springs 51.12 29.27Coachella 45.91 28.42Cathedral City 36.54 26.36Indio 33.02 19.29Palm Desert 30.41 19.90La Quinta 23.95 15.57Hemet 23.09 14.53Riverside 20.13 12.07Moreno Valley 19.53 13.05Lake Elsinore 14.58 9.67San Jacinto 13.00 9.96Perris 12.49 8.20Corona 11.54 8.07Blythe 9.15 5.08Murrieta 8.69 5.85Banning 8.65 5.45Beaumont 7.64 5.68Canyon Lake 7.09 5.32Temecula 6.45 3.92Eastvale 6.23 4.36Rancho Mirage 5.94 3.24Menifee 5.28 3.38Wildomar 5.10 3.76Jurupa Valley 4.93 2.19Indian Wells 3.66 3.66Norco 3.01 1.88Calimesa 2.18 2.18

Census-Designated Place

Total Applications per 10,000 residents

Pre-Eligible Applications per 10,000 residents

Thermal 728.48 500.37Mountain Center 158.73 158.73Mecca 80.85 50.18Idyllwild-Pine Cove 52.87 44.73Whitewater 40.98 30.74Winchester 40.94 34.12Ripley 24.51 0.00Thousand Palms 21.76 10.99Bermuda Dunes 20.54 11.74Anza 15.87 12.69North Shore 10.37 6.92Romoland 8.98 4.49Homeland 5.46 4.10Desert Edge 2.99 2.99Cabazon 2.97 2.97Cherry Valley 2.58 2.58

Figure 7. Total and Pre-Eligible Applications per 10,000 Residents, by City

Figure 8. Total and Pre-Eligible Applications per 10,000 Residents, by Census Designated Place

See Figures 7 and 8, below, for the number of both total and pre-eligible applications per capita from each city and Census-Designated Place, respectively.


7 Extremely Low-Income is defined as earning at or below 30% of Area Median Income (AMI), Very Low-Income is defined as earning between 30% and 50% of AMI, and Low-Income is defined as earning between 50% and 80% of AMI. These statistics presented here are based on applicants’ reported 2019 household income and the federal government’s 2020 AMI limits for the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario Metropolitan Statistical Area (https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/il/il2020/2020summary.odn).

8 Bureau of Labor Statistics (2020). https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.ca_riverside_msa.htm

INCOME

The data shows that 46% of pre-eligible applicants are considered Extremely Low-Income, 27% are Very Low-Income, and 18% are Low-Income.7 This suggests that the United Lift Rental Assistance Program is primarily reaching low-income households, the bulk of which are considered Extremely Low-Income (see Figure 9, below).

EMPLOYMENT

The majority (52%) of pre-eligible applicants report being out of work or unable to work due to COVID-19. This is an alarmingly high percentage, given the county’s pre-COVID-19 unemployment rate of approximately 4%.8 Figure 11, on the following page, reveals that, while 36% of pre-eligible applicants that are still working (including self-employment), only 12% of pre-eligible applicants are working full-time. This high unemployment rate among pre-eligible applicants and indefinite lockdown orders suggest that paying rent will become increasingly difficult as the COVID-19 pandemic continues.

These figures are important to note because rent is only one of many monthly expenses for households, which must also pay for healthcare, groceries, utilities and other bills. Low-income households are forced to pick and choose how they spend their limited resources, which are becoming even more limited as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Figure 10, below, shows that average monthly income in the months after the start of the pandemic (April, May, and June) are roughly half of what they were in the months before the start of the pandemic (January and February).

Figure 9. Income Breakdown of Pre-Eligible Applications

Figure 10. Average Monthly Income in Months Pre-COVID-19 vs. During COVID-19

Income Level Percentage of Pre-Eligible ApplicationsExtremely Low-Income 46%Very Low-Income 27%Low-Income 18%Not Low-Income 9%

Month, 2020 Average Monthly Income of Pre-Eligible ApplicationsJanuary $2,365.79February $2,275.09March $1,501.15April $1,181.29May $1,279.86June $1,221.49


Figure 11. Employment Status of Pre-Eligible Applicants

The application data also reveals that only a quarter of pre-eligible applicants report receiving Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits even though a majority are unemployed. This low rate of (UI) receipt could suggest a few things – that there is a sizeable number of undocumented pre-eligible applicants who are thus ineligible for UI, that many pre-eligible applicants are ineligible for UI for other reasons, or that many pre-eligible applicants are not aware that they are eligible for UI benefits.

Figure 12, on the following page, shows that food service, healthcare, sales and retail, cleaning/ janitorial/ housekeeping, and personal care and service occupations are the most common among pre-eligible applicants, which suggests that employees from these industries have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Countywide, 14% of applicants work or worked in food preparation/service, 11% as healthcare practitioners or in healthcare support roles, 9% in sales and retail, 9% in cleaning, janitorial, or housekeeping roles, and 8% in personal care and service roles like hairstylists, massage therapists, and child care services.

However, when looking at the Lift to Rise and United Way catchment zones separately, the data shows the most impacted occupations differ by region. For example, 21% of pre-eligible applicants in the Lift to Rise zone work or worked in food preparation/service, as compared to 8% of pre-eligible applicants in the United Way zone. Healthcare practitioner and support occupations were much more common among pre-eligible applicants in the United Way zone (14%) than in the Lift to Rise zone (8%). Lift to Rise zone pre-eligible applicants were more likely to work in agricultural and cleaning/janitorial/housekeeping occupations and less likely to work in warehouse/packaging and transportation/trucking occupations than those from the United Way zone. These differences highlight the variation in economic drivers across the county and call attention to the industries that are most impacted in each zone.


Figure 12. Top 10 Occupations of Pre-Eligible Applicants, Countywide vs. LTR vs. UW

RENT AND HOUSING CHARACTERISTICS

Among pre-eligible applicants, nearly 37% report being at least three months behind on rent payments (see Figure 13, below). The more months behind in rent, the more difficult it is to pay off the balance, and the more likely it is that the household will eventually face eviction. At the time of application 79% of pre-eligible applicants stated that they would not be able to pay rent in July. According to the data, 12% of pre-eligible applicants have already received an eviction notice in the past three months. While some cities have issued emergency eviction moratoriums, these do not offer protections from the financial obligations of renters, leaving those who are behind on rent vulnerable to eviction.

Countywide, the average unpaid rent balance of those who are behind on rent is $2,547.32. Figure 14, on the following page, shows that the average unpaid balance in the United Way catchment zone is about $700 higher than it is in the Lift to Rise zone, which is likely attributable to the higher average monthly rent price in the United Way zone.

Figure 13. Distribution of The Number of Months Behind on Rent Among Pre-Eligible Applicants

Number of Months Behind on Rent Percentage of Pre-Eligible Applications1 Month 32%2 Months 31%3 Months 26%More than 3 Months 11%


Figure 14. Average Monthly Rent Price and Average Unpaid Rent Balance, Countywide vs. LTR vs. UW

Riverside County Lift To Rise Zone United Way ZoneAverage Monthly Rent Price $1,305.42 $1,095.29 $1,470.67Average Unpaid Rent Balance $2,547.32 $2,153.39 $2,857.03

The data also shows that the average pre-eligible applicant is in about $6,000 worth of debt.9 It is possible that some applicants borrowed money to keep current on previous rent payments, which would make them appear current or close to current on rent, when they are actually in a financially precarious situation because of their debt. Unfortunately, the data collected does not indicate which applicants borrowed money to pay rent.

DEMOGRAPHICS AND HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION

The application data reveals that a disproportionately high number of pre-eligible applicants are Black and Hispanic/Latinx and that a disproportionately low number are White. According to the US Census Bureau, about 7% of the Riverside County population is Black, yet 15% of pre-eligible applicants identify as Black. Similarly, about 50% of Riverside County’s population is Hispanic/Latinx compared to 55% of pre-eligible applicants. Conversely, 34% of the county population is White but only 17% of pre-eligible applicants are White.10 These disproportionalities suggest that Black and Hispanic/Latinx households are more at risk of housing instability as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic than White households. A higher percentage of the county’s Hispanic/Latinx and Black populations have tested positive for COVID-19 than its White population, further compounding the pandemic’s impact on Hispanic/Latinx and Black county residents.11 Figure 15, below, shows the racial breakdown of the pre-eligible applicant pool.

9 This figure refers to the average debt balance from credit cards and other forms of unsecured debt.

10 US Census Bureau Quick Facts (2019). https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/riversidecountycalifornia

11 Riverside University Health System - Public Health (Jul 15, 2020). https://www.rivcoph.org/Portals/0/Documents/CoronaVirus/July/Dashboard/Public%20Daily_COVID-19_Updates%20071520.pdf?ver=2020-07-15-145230-547&timestamp=1594850009986. Based on population demographic information from US Census Bureau, and the COVID-19 case numbers as of July 15, 2020 from Riverside University Health System, 0.81% of the county’s Hispanic/Latinx population, 0.39% of the county’s Black population, and 0.37% of the county’s White population has tested positive for COVID-19.

Hispanic or Latinx - 55%

Black - 15%

White- 17%

Other Race - 4%

More Than One Race - 5%

Native Hawaiian / Asian Pacific Islander - 1%

American Indian / Alaska Native - 1%

Asian - 2%

55%

15%17%

4%

5%

2%1%1%

Figure 15. Pre-Eligible Applicants by Race


In addition to racial disparities, the data also revealed that 67% of pre-eligible applicants identify as female. Additionally, approximately 45% of pre-eligible applicants report having at least one child under the age of five in their household (see Figure 16, below). These statistics suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic is disproportionately impacting women, many of them mothers with young children. In order to get a more nuanced understanding of how the pandemic is impacting mothers and parents, subsequent applications will ask applicants whether they are single parents, as well as the number of school-aged children in the household.

Nearly 15% of pre-eligible applicants reported having at least one senior adult, aged 65 or older, in their household, and nearly a quarter reported having at least one disabled person in their household (see Figures 17 and 18, below). Households with senior adults and/or disabled people likely face additional burdens related to healthcare costs and COVID-19 precautions, suggesting that rental assistance will be especially beneficial for them.

Number of Children Aged 0-5 in Household

Percentage of Pre-Eligible Applications

0 55%1 23%2 14%3 6%4 2%5+ 1%

Number of Seniors in Household


0 86%1 10%2 4%3+ 1%

Number of Persons with a Disability in Household


0 74%1 21%2 3%3+ 1%

Figure 16. Percentage of Pre-Eligible Households with Children Aged 0-5, by Number of Children

Figure 17. Percentage of Pre-Eligible Households with Seniors Aged 65+, by Number of Seniors

Figure 18. Percentage of Pre-Eligible Households with Persons with Disabilities, by Number of Persons with Disabilities