A Closer Look at Arleta in Numbers
Having lived in Arleta for 11 years, I’ve never really paid attention to the neighborhood as a whole. I attended school in Northridge and Granada Hills so I spent most of my time there and only went back home when I needed to. The only time I’ve actually explored around my neighborhood was going to the local Costco in Pacoima or running a quick errand to the grocery store nearby. Looking at the Census Reporter’s data on Arleta has given me a deeper understanding of what is happening in the community that I live in.
According to the Census Reporter, over 86% of Hispanics make up the majority of the population in Arleta, followed by White and Asians at 5% each and 3% for Blacks. I’ve noticed that there isn’t much diversity in our neighborhood as all of our neighbors are Latino.
When it comes to the place of birth for the foreign population, 90% are from Latin America while 9% are from Asia. Due to the large population of Latinos present, it only makes sense that the language spoken at home would be Spanish. Over 75% of children ages 5–17 spoke Spanish while 23% spoke English only.
For many of these families, living day to day can be a struggle as 16.8% live below the poverty line. About 40% of households make less than $50,000, which shows how Arleta is a low-income community.
With 10.9% of the population having a Bachelor’s degree or higher, it is evident that Arleta faces a large disparity in terms of education. This lack of education causes the population to work at minimum wage-paying jobs, which attributes to the per capita income of $19,534.
COVID-19 has definitely impacted this neighborhood with Crosstown reporting that Arleta has 18860.10 cases per 100K population. The pandemic has caused many hardships for people who have lost their work and for those that are risking their lives by working at high-risk areas to provide for their family.
