Here's why housing is such a problem for low-wage workers

It would take an hourly wage of $25.78 (three times the minimum wage in California) and someone working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year in order to afford a two-bedroom apartment at a fair market rent - at least without having to pay more than 30 percent of their income. Map shows the numbers of minimum wage hours needed to work each week (129 in California). The state is near the top of the most expensive housing states (only Hawaii and the District of Columbia are higher). The problem is that with home purchases still out of reach for many Californians, rents go up and vacancies go down. This is especially true in L.A.'s low-income areas. From a report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition:

Finding a decent, affordable apartment is a challenge for all renters, but the poorest households are the most likely to be locked out of the market entirely. For every 100 extremely low income (ELI)6 renter households, there are just 30 affordable and available units.7 Only a sliver of the rental market remains affordable and available to the lowest income households. The level of investment in new affordable housing units today is insufficient to meet the demand. Although nearly a third (29%) of renter households live below poverty,8 and a quarter of renters have extremely low incomes,9 most newly constructed units are for high income households, while older units are being swiftly upgraded to serve a higher income market.