The first and most urgent crisis is the 150,000 homeless Californians sleeping in shelters or on the streets. Gov. Newsom has devoted more attention to this dimension of the housing crisis than any other. It’s the most shameful symptom of how things have gone so wrong here and is trending in the wrong direction.
First Crisis
The second housing crisis involves over 7 million California residents living in poverty when housing costs are taken into account. While not homeless, 56% of these low-income Californians see more than half of their paychecks devoured by rising rents. Skewing Black and brown, these are the renters who face intense displacement and gentrification pressures, live in overcrowded and unsafe housing conditions, and have fled urban cores for cheaper exurbs over the past two decades.
Second Crisis
California’s third housing crisis afflicts a younger generation of middle-class and higher-income Californians. In the late 1960s, the average California home cost about three times the average household’s income. Now it costs more than seven times what the average household makes. High rents make saving for a down payment that much more difficult. While lower-income Californians have struggled to afford the state for decades, the term “housing crisis” and its attendant publicity really only came into vogue once richer Californians started seriously considering moving to Austin or Portland or Las Vegas.
Third Crisis