Homeless in Pasadena (Photo – Staff).
California has a poverty problem. Its poverty rate is by some measures the highest in the country.
By Ethan Elkind
But while conservatives blame the state’s tax and social welfare structures, university researchers David Brady and Zachary Parolin pin the blame on high housing costs:
“California has the highest supplemental poverty measure rate simply because of our highest-in-the-nation home prices. If housing prices in California were at the median seen across the rest of the United States, the state’s supplemental poverty measure rate would drop by nearly a third — to 11.7 percent from 17.1 percent. California would then rank 30th among the states based on 2015 data. This might not be surprising, as 29 percent of Californians spend more than half their monthly income to keep a roof over their heads.
High housing costs in this state are due to high demand, unmatched by available housing supply, particularly in our job-rich cities.
If Sacramento legislators really wanted to address poverty in the state, the single most important step they could take would be to increase housing production in these job centers to meet demand. Let’s hope the next legislative session brings some bold, meaningful solutions for this problem to the table.
Ethan Elkind directs the climate program at UC Berkeley Law, with a joint appointment at UCLA Law. His book “Railtown” was published by the University of California Press.
Let’s also hope that the new housing that is built has set aside affordable units. Building our way out of a housing crisis will take many years. In the meantime, the most vulnerable suffer. Building units that cater to the wealthiest in society in order to maximize developer profits is not the answer to the problem. City’s also have to have strong policies to address homelessness.