California Must Build 2.5M Houses By 2030 To Avoid Exacerbating Homeless Crisis, Report Finds
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – With housing prices skyrocketing, and the homeless crisis worsening statewide, a new report released Wednesday determined that California needs to build another 2.5 million homes in the next eight years in order to ease the housing crisis.
The report from the California Department of Housing and Community Development found that by the year 2030, at least 2.5 million new homes need to be built, with at least one million of those going to lower-income families.
Over the last eight-year planning period, only 588,344 homes were built, according to CDHCD, which was well under the 1.2 million goal which was set.
"We don't want to see people on the streets, we don't want to see the tent cities, we don't want to see this crisis that has just gone far, far out of control," said Kenra Lewis, executive director for the Sacramento Housing Alliance.
The median price for a home in January in Southern California was $697,500, a 16% increase from the year before, according to numbers from real estate data firm DQNews.
"High housing costs threaten the California dream," said Megan Kirkeby Wednesday, deputy director for CDHCD.
Cities and counties are required by law to approve a certain number of low income housing units as part of their development plans. If they don't meet those goals, they will face hefty fines. California also plans to give out $6.5 billion this year for housing development.
To read the full report, click here.