Salinas Valley faces severe housing affordability crisis for middle class

A new study has found that Salinas, California, is the least affordable city in the United States for middle-class people. The Brookings Institution report looked at housing costs compared to typical incomes. Salinas is famous as the birthplace of writer John Steinbeck, who grew up and is buried there. His 1952 novel East of Eden is set in the Salinas Valley and is still widely read today. Steinbeck wrote about farmworkers and poor families who struggled to achieve a better life. That struggle continues in a different way today. Middle-class residents now find it very hard to buy or rent a home in the area. Steinbeck's family home still stands on Central Avenue and now operates as a restaurant.