Let me guess. You don't live in CA...
No,I don't,but I do live in another high price area...suburban Boston.And around here there are many areas where it's hard to find a decent single family house for less that a million.But if you drive twenty minutes or so from some of these areas a decent single family can be had for less than half of that.
So perhaps if she had traveled 30 miles east of Santa Barbara (away from high priced ocean front towns)she could have paid 40% (or less) of her income for a decent apartment.
But not being familiar with that *particular* area I certainly could be wrong.