The state Department of Finance reported this month that California, which has a stubborn and growing shortage of housing, added just 77,000 houses, apartments and condos in 2018.
Actually, private and public housing developers drew permits for well over 100,000 units, and about that many were constructed. But a whopping 23,700 existing homes were burned or demolished, more than half of them in just one community, Paradise, which was virtually destroyed by wildfire.
With fire losses, the net addition was lower than the 85,297 recorded in 2017, which was lower than the 89,457 in 2016 — a situation that Gov. Gavin Newsom labeled as “deplorable” when he introduced a revised state budget this month.
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