Los Angeles Has an Accessible Housing Shortage, Too

Physically disabled renters have a major challenge finding accessible housing that fits their budget. According to a recent report from Apartment List, only 6% of homes in the US are accessible, and it is presenting a big challenge for physically disabled renters. In Los Angeles, the cost-burden rate is 10% higher for renters with a disability, as a result.

“This analysis was spurred by the fact that the cost burden rate—the percentage of households spending more than 30% of income on housing—is notably higher for those with a disability than those without,” Rob Warnock of Apartment List, tells GlobeSt.com. “In L.A., 65.2% of renter households with a disability are cost burdened, compared to 55.5% of those without a disability. We wanted to understand to what extent this is driven by an undersupply of accessible and affordable homes.”

Los Angeles is actually average when it comes to its supply of accessible housing, and trends only slightly lower than the national average. “Its accessible housing rate is 6.1%, slightly lower than the national rate of 6.4% and roughly half of the highest-ranking cities like Sacramento, Milwaukee, and St. Louis,” says Warnock. “Note that the 29 cities in the report are the only ones sampled by the American Housing Survey, so unfortunately we can’t compare L.A. to other megacities like NY and Chicago that were not surveyed.”

In Los Angeles, only 7% of homes that are accessible are actually occupied by a physically disabled resident, adding an additional challenge. “We know that single-family homes tend to be less accessible on average, and single-family zoning covers a large swath of LA’s residential land,” says Warnock. “Multifamily construction is much more accessible, but only in recent years have we seen this type of housing become popular in LA. I would expect that in the next decade, LA’s accessibility rate will increase much faster than it has in the previous few.”

Accessibility has become an amenity, and it is one that comes with a price tag for physically disable residents, exacerbating the affordability crisis for this demographic. “When accessible housing is undersupplied, it becomes a high-demand amenity that drives up the cost of living for families that require accessible features in their home,” says Warnock. “It also means that these families have fewer options to choose from, and those options are concentrated in newer, more-expensive buildings. Accessible features may increase construction costs that get passed on renters. Our analysis found that even when we control for a housing unit’s size and location, accessible homes rent for 10%  more than inaccessible ones.”

This could be changing, however. The report also found that accessible housing is increasing in apartments. In the 2000s, 21% of new apartments were accessible, while only 16% of new apartments were accessible in the 1990s.