Eight years ago, as he began his campaign for governor, Gavin Newsom described fixing the state’s chronic housing shortage as a moral imperative.
“This is a question of who we are,” Newsom wrote in 2017. “Housing is a fundamental human need — let’s not forget the human face behind the dire statistics.
“Housing instability can cause genuine mental and physical adversity,” he added, “and lead to insufferable decisions: no one should have to choose between paying rent or buying groceries. Knowing that too many Californians face this kind of anxiety breaks my heart.”
Newsom pledged that as governor he would lead the effort to develop 3.5 million new housing units by 2025, “because our solutions must be as bold as the problem is big.
“I realize building 3.5 million new housing units is an audacious goal,” Newsom continued, “but it’s achievable. There is no silver bullet to solve this crisis. We need to attack the problem on multiple fronts by generating more funding for affordable housing, implementing regulatory reform and creating new financial incentives for local jurisdictions that produce housing while penalizing those that fall short.”
The 3.5 million-unit goal was never anywhere near realistic. It would have required increasing construction from about 100,000 units a year when he made the pledge to more than 400,000, doubling peak production in this century.
That said, Newsom has over the almost seven years of his governorship, pretty much, done what he said he’d do to increase housing. He has signed multiple bills meant to speed up housing permits by eliminating state and local legal impediments, capped by two major measures this year.
Newsom signed Assembly Bill 130, which makes it more difficult to use the California Environmental Quality Act as a tool to block housing projects, and Senate Bill 79, which overrides local government land use authority to authorize multi-family, multi-story housing projects near transit stops.
Meanwhile Newsom’s Department of Housing and Community Development has set statewide goals of 180,000 new units a year and 2.5 million units over eight years. It also imposed ambitious quotas on local governments to designate land for residential development and cracked down on communities that impede multi-family projects for low- and moderate-income families.
The latter effort responds to the most acute aspect of California’s shortage — housing the nearly 35% of Californians who are living in poverty or near-poverty, mostly due to housing costs that are among the nation’s highest.
With the enactment of AB 130 and SB 79, the looming conclusion of Newsom’s governorship and the likelihood that he will run for president, it’s time to appraise results.
Has the production of housing in California substantially increased? Unfortunately, no.
At the time Newsom made his pledge, about 100,000 units were being built each year, with the net increase substantially lower due to losses by fire or destruction. Eight years later, it’s virtually unchanged, no matter which authority one consults.
The Census Bureau reports that between 2019, when Newsom took office, and 2024 new housing permits in California ranged from a high of 120,780 units in 2022 to a low of 101,546 last year. Newsom’s own budget agrees with the Census Bureau’s data for the same period and projects future construction through 2028 at 100,000 to 104,000 units a year.
Clearly, even though systemic barriers to housing construction have been eased, many developers have been unable to see housing in California as a good investment. The COVID-19 pandemic, which had massive economic impacts, and increases in interest rates to battle inflation also have had an effect.
Housing is far more complicated than Newsom depicted it when he made his promises. He gets a ‘B’ for effort — and an ‘F’ for results.
Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.
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