Housing in California is too expensive. Here's how we can fix it.

Our state’s housing shortage is decades in the making. It’s not going to be enough to build more housing; we’ve got to accelerate the pace of construction to get out of this mess.

The cost of housing should concern every Californian. It’s making it hard for our state to compete for jobs, pushing some of our college grads to leave our state, and slowing our economic growth.

The facts are grim for both renters and homeowners. But keep reading because there are solutions!

More than half of California renters are “cost burdened,” meaning they have to spend more than 30% of their income on rent. Nearly a third of renters are “severely cost burdened”—spending more than 50% of their income on rent. At that point, renters cannot afford to pay for other essentials like medicine or childcare, and cannot even think about saving.

High rental costs make it nearly impossible for Californians to save for homeownership—especially given the average California home costs more than $780,000. This isn’t just a coastal or urban problem; the average price of a home in Bakersfield or Fresno is about $400,000, and Stockton tops half a million.

For decades, our state’s housing supply just hasn’t kept pace with our population. A new study helps shed light on why.

And it shows that our housing cost crisis can be fixed, if we elect a leader who is laser-focused on the problem and willing to tackle bad policies.

Compared to Texas, it is 2.5x more expensive in California to build market-rate rental housing. For affordable rentals, it’s nearly 3x more costly. Part of the reason, the study’s authors explain, is that it takes on average 22 months longer to bring a project to completion in California than in Texas. Why does time matter? Builders face rising costs for materials during that near two-year period, driving up the final cost. Permitting delays create uncertainty and drive up legal and compliance costs. Developers commit money for years before they can start getting a return on their investment when the project is complete, and renters ultimately pay those costs.

The only way out of our housing crisis is to build a whole lot more housing. Estimates put the exact number of homes that we need at somewhere between 1 million and 4 million.

We’re only going to get there if we make construction cheaper and faster. I have some ideas for how we get there, including greenlighting innovative building strategies and streamlining the permitting process. We need to level the “building” field, so to speak, with our competitor states. We don’t have to sacrifice environmental or safety standards. What we need is certainty for people who build housing—certainty that their projects won’t get mired in years of pointless delay. And certainty that government will invest in the infrastructure needed—roads, sewers, schools—to support new communities.

Housing is the top expense making life unaffordable for California families, so it needs to be the number one priority for California’s next governor in helping Californians make ends meet.

And by the way, based on a New York Times analysis, Trump’s tariffs are predicted to drive up the cost of every single material in a home, with estimates that roofing will cost 21% more, appliances will cost 11% more, and cabinets will cost 17% more, among other things. This is yet another example of how California’s next leader needs to see how our state’s challenges and Trump’s actions are wedded together.

Our state’s housing shortage is decades in the making. It’s not going to be enough to build more housing; we’ve got to accelerate the pace of construction to get out of this mess and protect California’s future. I’m willing to work with anyone, or take ideas from anywhere, to make our housing more affordable.

Katie Porter