By Angela Bustos Sanchez and Kimberly Sandoval
Staff Writers
On the outside, Ashley De La Rosa is always happy and people think nothing of it, friends assume she lives a perfect life but at home, Rosa feels stressed and anxious. Rosa’s home life changed drastically after her parents struggled to keep up with the recent rent increase.
It has been shown that over the past few years that the cost of living in California has increased at a major level. Throughout the whole Bay Area rent has increased by 17% since January 2021.
The biggest increase has been in Mountain View where rent spiked by 22%. Sunnyvale is the second-highest jump at 15%, San Jose experiencing an 11% increase, and San Francisco being next at 6%.
The average rent for an Apartment in Redwood City is $3,322 for an average apartment size of 856 sq. ft. The rising rent in Redwood City continues to force low-income tenants out of the area
Prep learning center teacher Gretchen Oorthuys lives in the Redwood City area with her family. The rising rent has affected Ms.Oorthuys and has made her rethink where she will live in the future.
“What I’m worried about for the future of Redwood City is what will happen to our community if people have to go elsewhere to afford to live.” Ms. Oorthuys said “I have two kids now so it changes whether we are going to live here full time for the rest of our lives”
Ms.Oorthuys feels not stressed but overwhelmed because she worries that rent will keep increasing. Her students and coworkers are also getting stressed over money problems to pay rent.
Ms. Oorthuys hopes the rent increase doesn’t become a major problem because no one deserves to worry about being able to pay rent.
Summit Prep freshman Isabella Beck is the daughter of a single mother struggling financially. Beck went into depth on how the recent rise in rent has affected her home life.
“I feel overwhelmed,” Beck said “It impacts us because my mom is a single mom and it is hard to pay.”
Bella herself doesn’t feel it is a big issue for her because she’s not the one paying rent, but she cares for her mom because she’s the one paying the bills.
Another Bay Area resident and Summit Prep freshman, Edward Matute had a different perspective on the issue. While Beck was impacted by the rising rent, Matute on the other hand was not as affected by the recent increases.
“The increase of rent does not affect me a lot.” Matute explained, “I’m lucky that my parents aren’t under pressure because a lot of people are under pressure to pay the rent and I think that’s unfair to them.”
The issue of housing costs has affected residents across the Bay Area in different ways. Even though students had very different experiences, everyone agreed that the increasing rent is a growing issue facing our community as a whole.
Featured Image at the top of the post:
San Francisco studio apartments PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Proehl
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