The CEO of the Davis Street Community Center in San Leandro, Rose Padilla Johnson has managed a full range of community programs for nearly 30 years. Under Rose Padilla Johnson’s direction, the community center supports low-income residents of San Leandro by providing low-cost healthcare and childcare, as well as assistance with finding affordable housing.
Recently, the University of California at Berkeley and the California Housing Partnership released a report showing that rising housing costs in the Bay Area has resulted in the racial segregation within the neighborhoods. Studying census data from 2000 to 2015, the report found that the number of low-income minority households decreased by an average of 28 percent when the median price of rent increased by 30 percent. The data showed no significant change in the number of white households, despite rising rent costs.
Areas such as San Francisco’s Bayview, East Oakland, and East Palo Alto were once historically black neighborhoods, but those areas have lost dozens of low-income black families who moved to outlying areas such as Antioch, Fairfield, and Vallejo. Even after moving, these families ended up paying a higher percentage of their income on rent compared with people who were not displaced.
