Since 2018, the median cost of housing in Los Angeles County has increased from under $600k to nearly $800k. It began a trend of a shrinking population in the county with many flocking to other cities like San Diego and Las Vegas as well as rural communities in inland California like the High Desert. This migration of LA residents to these small rural towns has led to major population growth in the High Desert. As the town goes through its growing pains, it adjusts to a shifting political climate and an even more rapid ethnic shift in its population.
Elaine Gonzales, a community leader and former board member of the Adelanto School District, was one of many who moved from LA to the High Desert 28 years ago. At the time she moved, she and her husband were a young couple and new parents to four young girls. They had rented an apartment for 11 years in LA and sought to buy a house to fit their large family.
“We had been told by an uncle who had moved to the High Desert that we could find what we were looking for here,” Gonzales said. Nearly 28 years later, Elaine and her family still reside in Victorville.
Victorville has undergone significant demographic changes regarding ethnicity. In 2000, 33.5 percent of the town’s population was Hispanic or Latino, now that figure is 55.3 percent.
Despite this clear majority in the region, Latinos in the High Desert are not adequately represented in local government. This is largely because the area receives many immigrants from Mexico. Therefore, many who are not US citizens become residents of the High Desert, but are unable to vote, creating what Victorville City Council Member Blanca Gomez believes to be a more stagnant political climate than the demographic change would suggest.
“We are a majority,” Gomez said regarding the Hispanic and Latino population, “but the majority is not being seen as the majority because immigrants are not literally counted.”
Some of this demographic change can be attributed to people moving from places like LA where the population is now 48.4% Hispanic or Latino. Many who have fled Los Angeles have found opportunity in the once-small town of Victorville, CA and the surrounding rural High Desert community. Now, Victorville’s population has nearly doubled in the past two decades.
One reason for this population growth, according to Gomez, is that people are coming from “down the hill,” a term used in the Inland Empire to refer to areas west of the Cajon Pass, to the High Desert for affordability. Gomez explained that because the housing market in areas like LA values houses higher, people will sell their homes, and then go where the housing market is more affordable. People can then buy larger houses for cheaper with the money they receive from selling their homes in LA.
Opposed to LA County’s $800k median housing cost, San Bernardino County’s median price is under $500k. There also remains much unowned, and undeveloped land for businesses to move into. As the town grows, however, so do the costs of living begin to increase there too.
“On Highway 395…I could go about ten miles without seeing a home, any establishments, or even any stop lights,” Gomez said, “Now, commerce is king.”
Gomez explained that in addition to people moving from areas like LA, population growth is also fueled by factors such as the movement of unhoused people in surrounding areas to Victorville, where more shelters are available, and people being brought to be tried in Victorville’s criminal courts and imprisoned in the area. “Having the court here being all criminal,” Gomez said, “it brings a lot of people from outside this area.”
After serving their sentences formerly incarcerated people are then let go on Seventh Street in Victorville, according to Gomez.
“They’ll end up in Victorville and they end up staying here because they’re stranded. They don’t have money to move,” Gomez said.
The story of the High Desert is consequentially intricately connected to that of Los Angeles and the whole of Southern California. It houses large numbers of underrepresented groups and continues to grow as more people seek the opportunities offered in a rural community or otherwise find themselves residing in the High Desert.