Santa Maria Eviction Risk: Elevated

The score leans hardest on 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 about the same as 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.

In CDC survey modeling, about 23.7% of adults here said they could not pay rent or mortgage at some point in the past year, and 11.5% faced a utility shutoff threat, a common early warning before a filing.

The tract is predominantly Hispanic or Latino and ranks around the 94th 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.

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