Dear Friends --

This is an urgent moment: Several key housing bills, including SB 79 to make it easier to build homes near transit stops and SB 677 to close loopholes in housing law, are coming up for a crucial vote in the Senate Housing Committee on Tuesday. And there's a chance these bills won't pass out of their first committee.

That's why I wrote the following open letter to Senator Aisha Wahab, chair of the Senate Housing Committee. Sen. Wahab has the opportunity to change the story -- and show that the California Dream is still alive -- by advancing pro-housing bills at next week's hearing.

Will you join me? Please co-sign my open letter to Sen. Wahab and help tackle California's housing crisis!

Here's my open letter:

Dear Chairwoman Wahab,

California is in an acute housing crisis.

• The average California family has no path to homeownership. The median home price in California is 10 times the median household income—for context, a healthy ratio falls between three and five.

• Over half of all California renters are rent burdened, spending more than a third of their income on rent, and one in three California renters are severely rent burdened, spending more than half of their income on rent.

• Our state has the highest rate of housing overcrowding in the country, with hundreds of thousands of Californians doubling or tripling up to make rent. This situation made California uniquely susceptible to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Our state is home to the largest unhoused population in the U.S., by a huge margin. Nearly 200,000 Californians go without shelter on a typical night. This has strained local resources and devastated communities.

• As a result of high costs, many hundreds of thousands of our neighbors have left the state, such that California is losing population for the first time. Our state is on track to lose four seats in Congress in 2030.

This unprecedented crisis warrants unprecedented reforms.

The roots of our housing affordability crisis are multifaceted, but the core of the issue is clear: tight restrictions on homebuilding across our state have led to a severe shortage.

Over the past 30 years, our state issued just three new housing permits per 1,000 residents in a typical year—by comparison, states that have achieved better outcomes on housing affordability permitted three times as much housing. There is no way our state can end this crisis without building several million homes in the coming years.

While the scale of our housing crisis is unique, California is not the only state to wrestle with this challenge. But we are falling behind other states in taking bold action to address it. In states as ideologically distinct as Florida and Oregon, Montana and Colorado, North Carolina and Massachusetts, Virginia and Washington, legislators have legalized "missing middle" housing and apartments near transit stops and job centers.

In cities like Austin and Minneapolis, a surge of housing production – brought on by the same types of reforms being proposed in the California legislature today – has already helped those cities to bring their housing affordability crises under control.

The California legislature has an opportunity to pass powerful reforms that can address our housing shortage, and lay the groundwork for ending the crisis. The legislation you will hear on April 22 would help unlock much-needed capital for affordable housing (SB 750), close loopholes in existing law (SB 677), and remove barriers to building the right types of homes, in the right places, for the right price (SB 79, SB 9, SB 543).

All of these bills have garnered the backing of grassroots pro-housing groups, local elected officials, environmentalists and business groups.

But some have also drawn opposition from the same groups who have repeatedly scuttled reform, even as our crisis has deepened. Many of these groups submitted opposition letters at the last minute, without providing a chance for bill authors, sponsors, and supporters to work in good faith to address their concerns. In many cases, opponents make assertions about these bills that are misleading or untrue.

None of these bills is perfect. We remain committed to working with the author, members of the legislature, and other stakeholders to address real concerns, and to come to agreement about how we can advance solutions in this legislative session.

But to let these bills die at this stage would be to deny Californians an opportunity for a long overdue discussion about what it will take to end our housing crisis.

California has long been a model for the nation, and the world. In the 20th century, we built the world’s best public university system, led the clean air movement, and connected the entire planet with transformative technologies. But today, our state is synonymous with gridlock, scarcity, and stagnation.

We respectfully ask that you change that story. By advancing the pro-housing bills in the Senate Housing Committee, you will show Californians that their government can still deliver on big, visionary goals, and show the nation that the California Dream is alive.

With urgency and hope,

M. Nolan Gray
Senior Director of Legislation and Research, California YIMBY

If you agree with this open letter, please click here to add your name as a co-signer.