housing units in the area are renter- occupied), whether our area has high resident “turnover” (i.e., what percent of residents moved into the area in recent years), whether our area has housing units with crowding (i.e., more than one occupant per room), and whether our residents are rent-burdened (i.e., how much rent do our residents pay as a percentage of their income). We can scroll through this table to find clues about the answer to each of these questions. First, we can look for what percentage of our area residents are renters. The “housing tenure” row describing occupied housing units can answer this question. Housing tenure can be of two types: either owner-occupied or renter-occupied. The percent column tells us what percent of Los Angeles County residents fall into each category. As we can see in Figure 18, renters occupy an estimated 54.2 percent of housing units in Los Angeles County. The margin of error for this estimate is +/- 0.3 percent, which tells us that the percent estimate could vary between 53.9 percent and 54.5 percent. This is a minor variation, and in either case, the data tells us that over half of the county residents are renting. The population of renters, with low-income renters, in particular, could be at heightened risk of eviction.
Figure 18: Learning about housing tenure from the housing characteristics data profile table.
Other estimates included in the table can help address our remaining housing questions. Suppose we navigate further down the page to the indicator telling us about the number of residents who moved into their housing unit during a particular period of years. In that case, we can see that most units — 27.4 percent — became occupied between 2010 and 2014, shown in Figure 19. Only 8.8 percent of housing units became occupied between 2017 and today. This suggests that Los Angeles County has not recently experienced a surge in moves or new residents that could indicate housing instability.
Figure 19: Learning about the year Los Angeles County residents moved into their homes.
Next, let’s look at whether Los Angeles County residents are experiencing crowding. Crowding suggests that families may not have sufficient space in their home for all members; usually, we describe a household as crowded if it has more than one person per room and overcrowded if it has more than 1.5 persons per room. As shown in Figure 20, 88.7 percent have one or fewer occupants per room within occupied housing units.
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