California’s housing crisis has, for some time now, become the dominant political issue in the state. The median home costs nearly $600,000, and the average rent is $1,000 a month more than the national average.
So, how did we get here? And what do we need to do to correct the market? Liam Dillon, who covers housing for the Los Angeles Times, moderated a fascinating discussion at this year’s Politifest with a group of housing experts, including Sen. Scott Wiener, the author of Senate Bill 50, which would allow for increased density near transit.
“It’s a political situation where you have to inspire people to think long-term to say we are going to take short-term steps to triage to make sure people aren’t getting pushed out, to make sure that people are stable,” Weiner said. “We’re going to do that, and we’re going to move as fast as we can to build supportive housing for the homeless and so forth. But we have to stay the course for a long period of time.”
Other panelists included Elyse Lowe, San Diego’s director of development services; Ray Major, chief economist for SANDAG and Maya Rosas, policy director for Circulate San Diego.
Catch up on everything related to Politifest 2019 here.