A college graduate dreamed of securing a good-paying job after graduation and moving out of her family’s home. Instead, her story mirrors thousands of people struggling to carve out the rest of their lives in the current economy.

 

This comes after San Diego was ranked the most expensive place to live by the U.S. News & World Report. The report was produced through research into rent and annual mortgage costs, which found that the median price for a house in San Diego is $919, 507, whereas the average annual salary is $67, 200. 

 

Even rent prices are on the rise at more than $2,000 on average for a single-unit apartment, which San Diego State University

graduate Carissa Tanson said was the reason she hasn’t moved out of her fiancé’s family home in unincorporated El Cajon. 

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A Google map locates the cities in San Diego County and the average rent prices in those cities based on data from Apartments.com for 2023. 

 

“We’ve been looking for a while on Zillow, but we really just look for fun now because it’s like, oh, we can’t afford that,” said Tanson, a spring 2022 graduate of the Television, Film and New Media program. “But it’s nice to dream.” 

 

Careers amid housing issues in San Diego 

 

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Tanson and her fiancé looked throughout San Diego County for someplace to live, including Ramona. However, she said that she didn’t want to move that far outside her current residence. Instead, she’s hoping that she and her fiancé can move out after he receives his nursing degree and secures a job. 

 

Tanson took three jobs after graduation. She’s currently working as a production assistant for the television news station KUSI, a certification trainer for the YMCA and a lifeguard. Tanson said that she doesn’t have time to breathe right now, but it’s really difficult to get a full-time position out of college that pays well. 

 

“It’s crazy that we’re graduating but we’re not getting an OK paying job to reasonably stay in San Diego,” Tanson said. “When you’re growing up, you’re told that if you get a bachelor’s degree, you can get a good job and get a house, but with inflation and everything, places can charge an arm and a leg for sh— little apartments.” 

 

A graduate from SDSU’s psychology program in 2021 held similar sentiments about rent in San Diego in congruence with her current job. 

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Christina Nosratpour works as an operation manager for a mental health facility, and she hasn’t moved out of her family’s home because of steep rent prices. She tried to move out several times, and even looked at apartments around San Diego with a specific focus on El Cajon. However, she said it didn’t seem feasible for her and after working out how much money she would need to live comfortably, she decided to stay home. 

 

“I was discouraged early on,” Nosratpour said. “No matter how much you make, it seems like you make less because prices are so high. I make triple the amount I made years ago, and I understand there are other expenses I’m paying for now, but I felt like I had more money to spend back then.”

 

San Diego housing crisis 

 

Nosratpour and Tanson aren’t the only ones struggling to pay for a place to live in San Diego. 

 

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Construction workers finish details on new condos in Lemon Grove, California Nov. 17, 2023. Photo by Madison McGill.

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According to the annual homeless census conducted by the Regional Task Force for Homelessness in January 2023, there are more than 10,000 homeless people in the San Diego region, and a total of 5,171 are unsheltered. 
 

Tanson said that she heard stories about graduates who had to move into their cars because they couldn’t find jobs, but she thinks homelessness is generally an issue in San Diego. 

 

“We had someone come up on KUSI and he was talking about a camping program where they had this land and they put all these tents out for homeless individuals,” Tanson said. “I’m like, why can’t we figure out a way to make housing more affordable rather than this kind of quick fix?” 

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However, there are some programs in place to mitigate homelessness in cities around San Diego, even though homelessness increased this year.

 

 

Programs 

 

Graham Mitchell, the city of El Cajon’s city manager, said that the city spends over $1 million on homeless programming every year. This includes financing hotel voucher programs, which house homeless people as the first step toward permanent housing. 

 

According to the city of El Cajon, 243 people were sheltered by this program. Additionally, 47 people found permanent housing. 

 

“There are some cities in this county that have a goal of accommodating a homeless lifestyle,” Mitchell said. “That is not our goal. Permanent housing is the No. 1 goal.” 

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Mitchell added that El Cajon has taken the brunt of this voucher program, and there’s imbalance.

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“I think if we had our fair share, we would have no problem with, in fact, we would have welcomed that,” Mitchell said. “But when you start bringing folks in from other communities, from South Bay and from North County and other parts of East County, when there’s hundreds of other motels in the county not dispersing the volume of homeless. That’s what we had the concern with.”        

 

This program helps people already living on the streets, but Tanson and Nosratpour agreed that the local government should do something to help graduating college students, whether it’s creating outreach or transition programs. 

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They both want to see more affordable housing in the area, and Tanson added that she hopes to see increased minimum wage across the board after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation to pay fast food workers $20 per hour beginning in April 2024 to help people pay for their residences.

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One program through the San Diego Housing Commission (SDHC) offers rental assistance, which helps low-income people make their rent due dates, but the average time spent on the waitlist is 12 to 15 years. Also, SDHC partners with developers to create and preserve affordable rental housing, and some units designate a few units for San Diegans 18 to 25 years old.   

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According to SDHC’s vice president of Communications and Government Relations, Scott Marshall, the most concerning aspect of housing in San Diego is that rising costs that surpass income will create greater risk for homelessness at all ages. However, he emphasized that additional resources are needed to fully address the problem. 

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Marshall added that there are concerns about people moving away from their employment because it’s too expensive to live in San Diego. 

 

“This contributes to longer travel times and traffic, as well as the adverse environmental affects associated with travel and traffic,” Marshall wrote in an email.   

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Despite the strides to mitigate cost of living-related issues, the crisis currently affects people across all demographic markers, including:

• race 

• age 

• education level. 

 

Inflation isn’t slowing down, and recent college graduates are aware that their lives are heavily impacted by it. 

 

“It’s really frustrating that I’m unable to afford a place without living paycheck-to-paycheck,” Tanson said.  

This project was produced by Madison McGill as a published learning experience in JMS 430 Digital Journalism, part of the Journalism and Media Studies Program at San Diego State University.