Santa Maria Eviction Risk: Elevated

What moves this score most is tenant organizing strength at $1/10. That part comes from the wider legal climate rather than the tract itself. Statewide and court-level factors such as eviction-process speed and rent-control exposure are inherited from Santa Maria, while the economic and supply signals are measured at the tract level.

Set against its neighbors, this tract scores above the Santa Barbara County average of 5.5 and in line with the California statewide average of 6.1. Within its own county it reads on the riskier side for landlords.

The tract is predominantly Hispanic or Latino and ranks around the 98th percentile nationally on the CDC Social Vulnerability Index, a measure of how exposed residents are to housing and economic shocks. High vulnerability tends to track with higher eviction-filing rates when rents climb.

In CDC survey modeling, about 29.4% of adults here said they could not pay rent or mortgage at some point in the past year, and 15.4% faced a utility shutoff threat, a common early warning before a filing.

For a landlord, conditions here are middle-of-the-road. Standard screening and prompt, documented notices usually keep cases short.