[2025-26 KD Data Journalist Internship: Project Results ②] “Analysis of Rental Housing Costs and Homelessness in Koreatown, Los Angeles”

Authors: Ryan Yoo(Project Leader), Sara Wang, Haoyu Sun, Irene Sung

Introduction
Housing affordability has become a serious issue in many American cities, especially in Los Angeles. Over the past decade, rent prices have continued to rise while homelessness has remained a constant, visible problem. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, these issues became even more complicated when many people lost their jobs and housing policies shifted rapidly. Koreatown, a region that was impacted by the pandemic just like any other, is located in central Los Angeles, known for its high population density and wide range of housing options, from
older apartment buildings to newer developments. Koreatown may provide a strong example of how rent increases and homelessness may be connected because of these conditions. The purpose of this study is to understand how changes in rental costs correlate to different forms of unsheltered homelessness over time, especially before, during, and after the pandemic.

Research Focus
This project focuses on three main questions:
– Do rental cost increases directly correlate with visible homelessness?
– Which specific categories of unsheltered homelessness are most sensitive to housing market changes?
– To what extent do distinct regional trends across Koreatown ZIP codes diverge from the overall Koreatown homelessness trend?
– By breaking homelessness into categories and comparing different time periods, this study aims to better understand if a relationship between rent and homelessness is truly present.

Data and Methodology
To analyze these questions, two main data sources were used. Rental costs were measured using the Zillow Observed Rent Index, which provides monthly rent estimates by ZIP code. Homelessness data came from the Neighborhood Data for Social Change (NDSC), which reports the number of sheltered and unsheltered individuals by census tract.

The study focused on the general six ZIP codes that make up Koreatown: 90004, 90005, 90006, 90010, 90019, and 90020. Since rental data is organized by ZIP code and homelessness data is organized by census tract, a ZIP code crosswalk was used to match the two datasets accurately.

The data was divided into three time periods:
Pre-COVID (2017–2019); During COVID (2020–2021); Post-COVID (2022–2025)

Breakdown of Homelessness Categories in Koreatown

This graph breaks down unsheltered homelessness in Koreatown into three categories: Street homelessness, tent/encampment homelessness, and vehicle homelessness. A comparison of these trends with rising rental costs from 2017 to 2024 is displayed. Overall, the data shows that the relationship between rental prices and visible homelessness is not linear.

Rising rent is more of a background pressure than a direct cause of visible homelessness, but each of the homeless categories responded differently. For example, vehicle homelessness remains relatively stable throughout the years, with only small fluctuations. Even as average
rental prices steadily increase, the number of individuals living in vehicles does not rise in parallel. This could mean that vehicle housing is likely an adaptation for individuals that do not have a home but are not forced to live on the street. This suggests that the vehicle-homeless
population is influenced by factors other than rental costs alone. Vehicle homelessness is a longer-term coping strategy because it is more mobile and stable than tent and encampment homelessness. People that suffer from tent and encampment homelessness are constantly displaced by homelessness sweeps, while individuals who live in automobiles can relocate more easily and maintain the same place to preserve their livelihood. If someone has access to a vehicle, they are less dependent on changes in the rental market, which makes this type of homelessness less dependent on market fluctuations, as seen by the graph.

In addition,. tent and encampment homelessness shows the most noticeable variation, indicating sensitivity to change. The increase from 2018 to 2019 followed by a decline in 2019 to 2022 may reflect shifts in both policy and physical space within Koreatown. Encampment counts often change in response to city-level cleanups, movement between neighborhoods, and temporary resources made available during the COVID period. While tent homelessness increases again after 2022, it does not rise proportionally to rental costs, indicating that encampment homelessness is sensitive to housing market conditions but not directly controlled by them.

Across all categories, the steady rise in rental prices does not produce a matching rise in unsheltered homelessness. Instead, the data shows that visible homelessness depends on a combination of policy decisions and temporary interventions. Notably, the slight decline in tent and street homelessness around 2020–2021 corresponds with pandemic-era protections, including emergency shelter expansions, outreach efforts, and reduced encampment enforcement. These supports likely ameliorated increases in visible homelessness even as rents slowly climbed.

No category demonstrates a direct, consistent correlation with rental prices. Rather than rental costs alone, multiple factors collectively shape the visible homeless population in Koreatown. This complexity displays the importance of analyzing homelessness by category in order to fully understand how different groups respond to changes within the housing environment.

Single Adults

This study also examined the correlation between rental price and single-adult homelessness in general. Across all years, single adults made up the overwhelming majority of the unhoused population in Koreatown. From 2017 to 2024, average rent steadily increases overall, especially after 2020. During this same period, the homeless single adult population rises and falls but tends to to higher in the years when rent is higher. For example, when rental prices peak around 2023, the number of homeless single adults also increases. Although the trend is not perfectly consistent every year, the graph suggests that rising rent prices may be connected to an increase in homelessness among single adults but rental costs alone cannot explain changes in the single-adult unhoused population. While housing affordability remains a major factor, this dataset indicates that there is no statistically significant one-to-one relationship between rising rents and year-to-year shifts in single-adult homelessness in Koreatown.

Between 2019 and 2022, the graph shows a clear decline in the number of single adults experiencing homelessness. This decrease may be tied to the COVID-era housing protections implemented during that time. Policies such as the LA County Tenant Protection Resolution, which shielded tenants from eviction for COVID-related financial struggles or no-fault reasons, and other emergency financial support helped stabilize housing for many residents who would have otherwise been at high risk of eviction. These interventions likely eased the pressure on vulnerable individuals during the height of the pandemic, contributing to the observed drop in single-adult homelessness.

However, after 2022, the upward trend resumes. As pandemic protections came to an end, particularly the expiration of the LA County Tenant Protections Resolution in 2023 and the winding down of rental assistance programs, residents previously shielded from displacement became vulnerable once again. At the same time, rental prices continued to climb, reaching some of the highest levels in the dataset. This combination of rising costs and the removal of temporary safety nets likely contributed to the steep increase in single-adult homelessness that is seen following 2022.

Together, these trends highlight the complex relationship between rental prices, policy interventions, and homelessness. While long-term affordability pressures remain an underlying issue, the data shows how short term governmental actions can meaningfully impact housing
stability, especially for single adults, who continue to make up the bulk of the unhoused population in Koreatown.

Shift in Homelessness Distribution Across Koreatown ZIP Codes

By analyzing the shift in homelessness distribution among specific ZIP codes, our graph reveals that the trend of homelessness tends to slightly fluctuate from region to region, but follows the general trend indicated in the Rental Price vs. Single-Adult Homelessness graph up until 2022.

Several ZIP codes, most notably 90006, show substantial cumulative increases in homelessness compared to the other codes. These trajectories suggest that certain areas, such as the 90006 region, may have functioned as destination ZIP codes, absorbing many individuals displaced from nearby neighborhoods.

After 2022, all analyzed code areas experienced a sharp decrease in homelessness, despite the overall single-adult homelessness trend displayed earlier increasing during the same period. This discontinuity post-2022 is largely a result of how we constructed our graphs. The graph showing single-adult homelessness reflects overall homelessness counts, while the graph displaying individual ZIP code regions lays across a cumulative change from a baseline. Homelessness can still increase overall while simultaneously decreasing within certain ZIP codes if individuals are redistributed to other areas or counted outside of the ZIP codes that were specifically focused on. A large net decrease within individual ZIP codes in 2022 produces a sharp downward shift in the cumulative graph, even as total homelessness continues to rise. This may not imply an opposing trend pattern between the two graphs, but rather differences in data measurement.

Other than this disconnect, the trends shown in the graph above show an average decline in homelessness in the years 2019-2022. This matches with the trend in the single-adult homelessness graph, indicating that each ZIP code analyzed were also similarly impacted by the rental protections placed down during the pandemic, allowing the homeless population to decrease in number.

Final Reflection

Overall, this study revealed that the relationship between rental costs and homelessness is more complex than it may initially appear. Rising rent does not automatically translate into higher levels of visible homelessness, and the fluctuations seen during the COVID-19 years reflect the impact of temporary housing protections to aid the pandemic’s strident impact on the economy. The data demonstrates that homelessness is shaped by multiple intersecting factors, not just changes in average rental prices.

Addressing homelessness in Koreatown will require more than controlling rental costs alone. Solutions in an effort to stabilize vulnerable residents should not only include expanding affordable housing units, but also increasing the availability of supportive housing for individuals and strengthening rapid rehousing programs that help people transition out of homelessness quickly when necessary.

By looking closely at the data, this project highlights the importance of understanding the population that is affected and recognizing that meaningful solutions must target the factors driving increases in homelessness.

With the guidance of Professor Seonho Kim at USC, our team was able to discover valuable findings about Koreatown that we hope can serve as an enlightening lens of understand housing insecurity to many others.