Federal Reserve Bank
of San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank
of San Francisco

Recent Findings on Residential Instability in Oakland

Authors

Jackelyn Hwang, Stanford University; Vasudha Kumar, Stanford University; Elizabeth Kneebone, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

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February 10, 2023

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Summary

Safe, stable, and affordable housing is central to ensuring healthy, sustainable, and inclusive communities. Amid COVID-19-related economic shocks and a worsening housing crisis, residents in cities across California are struggling to keep up with the rising costs of housing. This report draws from a unique, longitudinal dataset of over 14,000 residents to examine residential instability–in the form of moving and household crowding–in the City of Oakland, California. It presents trends from the last 20 years, with an additional focus on patterns emerging during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors find that lower credit score residents have left Oakland at accelerating rates in recent years, with least-resourced movers the most likely to leave the Bay Area altogether. Lower credit score residents also transitioned into crowded housing conditions at higher rates after the Great Recession; these transitions to crowded conditions subsided by 2020, but the pandemic once again pushed rates up for most groups. Rates of moving out and shifting into crowded housing in the last 20 years often trended in opposite directions, suggesting that lower credit score residents may make important tradeoffs to stay in their communities as housing price pressures increase. However, that most groups have seen increases in both crowding and moving since the pandemic may point to mounting and multiple instability pressures. Outcomes of instability were most pronounced for residents in Predominantly Black, Mixed Black, and Multiethnic neighborhoods in East and West Oakland.

Taken together, our findings highlight the vulnerability of lower credit score groups, especially those living in communities of color, and offer important insights for policymakers and practitioners working to stabilize Oakland’s most vulnerable residents. The report concludes with a discussion about the direction of future research.

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco or the Federal Reserve System.

 

Jackelyn Hwang

is an assistant professor of sociology and director of the Changing Cities Research Lab at Stanford University. Her research examines the relationship between how neighborhoods change and the persistence of neighborhood inequality by race and class in U.S. cities. Dr. Hwang received her BAS in sociology and mathematics from Stanford University and her PhD in sociology and social policy from Harvard University.

 

Vasudha Kumar

is the social science research analyst at the Changing Cities Research Lab at Stanford University. At the Lab, she manages a researcher-practitioner partnership with the City of Oakland and works on mixed-methods research to study gentrification, displacement, and housing insecurity. Kumar holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a minor in Mathematics from Santa Clara University.

 

Elizabeth Kneebone

is assistant vice president of community development research at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. In this role, she manages the Community Development research team and shapes and contributes to its research portfolio, with a focus on examining barriers to economic opportunity and promising practices to promote a strong, healthy, sustainable economy.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Iris Zhang and Sahir Qureshi for their excellent research assistance, and Stanford Impact Labs and the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education Urban Studies Summer Fellow Program at Stanford University for supporting Stanford University in this work. We are also grateful to Crystal Ejanda for editorial guidance and graphic design.

Article Citation

Hwang, Jackelyn, Vasudha Kumar, Elizabeth Kneebone. 2023. “Recent Findings on Residential Instability in Oakland.” Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Community Development Research Brief 2023-02. doi: 10.24148/cdrb2023-02.