With some fanfare, Gov. Jerry Brown last week signed a package of bills aimed at relieving an acute shortage of housing that has sent costs into the stratosphere and given California the nation’s highest level of functional poverty.
“These new laws will help cut red tape and encourage more affordable housing, including shelter for the growing number of homeless in California,” Brown said in a statement as he signed the measures in San Francisco.
Problem solved? Not by a long shot.
Money from a new tax on real estate transactions and a state bond issue will, by official estimates, result in 77,000 new housing units over five years when merged with funds from nonprofit groups, private investors and tax credits for low-income projects.
That’s less than 20 percent of the state’s projected need for additional housing over that period – and it could be years before any of the promised new housing is available. The regulatory fast-tracking in other bills could go further toward filling the need, but no one knows for certain.
Meanwhile, the new tax on real estate paperwork and new mandates to use “prevailing wages” in projects would actually make new housing development even more expensive.
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