I guess nobody ever heard of moving out a bit to lower rent areas, particularly in SD/LA, huh?
Of course, the real estate market in CA is so screwed up and it's so damn difficult to adhere to the plethora of rules, laws, and BS regulations that it drives up the cost of rental units because they're near 100 percent capacity (while homes sit empty).
Last place I rented in Huntington Beach before I bought the house--rent went up $250 in the two years we were there, and had we stayed it would have gone up another $150 more, meaning the RENT on a 2-BR apartment with a "family fun center" (read: noise factory) across the street and the 405 Freeway behind me would have been about $150 less than our mortgage on a 3BR house.
Then again, a lot of that was due to the fact that about six months after we moved in, they went to Section 8 and the place went to shit. Welfare leeches not paying shit, and those few of us who weren't on it were paying the difference.