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12 Section I: San Leandro in Context The Suburbanization of Poverty Human services help vulnerable people, particularly people struggling with economic insecurity, to meet their basic needs. The context of human service needs in San Leandro is the suburbanization of poverty over recent decades, a nationwide trend. The suburbanization of poverty is due both to low-income people moving to suburban communities and to long-term suburban residents falling below the poverty level. The growth of jobs – including low-wage jobs – in suburbs, and rapid increases in the cost of housing in cities have been drawing low-income people to suburbs, and wage stagnation and the disappearance of manufacturing jobs have pushed some long-term suburban residents into poverty.20 People in poverty living in suburbs face particular challenges because the safety net is less well developed in suburban communities, public transit often is less dense, and stigma around seeking services can be higher than in cities. Because poverty in suburbs is less concentrated, the needs of people in poverty in communities like San Leandro can be hidden. Additionally, suburban communities often have little history of political or community organizing among low-income residents, so these residents tend to have less political power. In the Bay Area, well over half of people in poverty live in the suburbs. The percentage of those in poverty who lived in suburbs increased from 46.8% in 1970 to 57.2% in 2012. The number of people in poverty living in the Bay Area suburbs increased 51.4% between 2000 and 2012.21 In San Leandro, the percentage of residents in poverty decreased from 6% in 1970 to 4.6% in 1980, nearly doubled between 1980 and 2010, to 8.6%, and then increased to 10.6% in 2011-15. From 2000 to 2011-15, the number of people in poverty in San Leandro rose from 5,000 to approximately 9,300.22 Our interviews with stakeholders23 revealed the consistent perception that the needs of San Leandro residents tend to be overlooked at the county level, and that within the community there is not yet a shared understanding of the needs of San Leandro residents, given the rapid demographic change the community has experienced in recent decades. 20 Metropolitan Poverty Program at Brookings, Confronting Suburban Poverty in America. (2014) http://confrontingsuburbanpoverty.org/ 21 Metropolitan Poverty Program at Brookings, Confronting Suburban Poverty in America. (2014) Suburban Poverty Data Tables. Accessed at http://confrontingsuburbanpoverty.org/resources/top-100-us-metros/ 22 US Census 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010 retrieved from Bay Area Census http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/. American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates for 2011-2015. 23 See Appendix B for list of interviewees.