Newsom reorganizes housing bureaucracy
The press release from the governor’s office begins by undercutting all that follows. Its second paragraph reads, “Since taking office in 2019, Governor Newsom has created unprecedented policy and structural changes in state government to help California better address its housing and homelessness crisis . . . . “ In a press release announcing further changes to how his government handles housing in California, such a statement risks pointing out to the public that he’s done a lot with maybe not so fantastic results.
In his latest move, announced on July 11, 2025, Governor Newsom authorized the creation of the California Housing and Homelessness Agency (CAHA) and the Business and Consumer Services Agency. This time, surely, it’ll work. After years of rules changes, threats to cities to live up to their housing commitments, new funds, withholding funds, and all the rest, is California’s housing situation significantly different or better?
You can’t blame Newsom for not trying. If anything, this just illustrates the entrenched interests in the state that are working to slow or stop new housing.
The governor’s announcement says creating CAHA as a standalone body “provides the alignment needed to speed up the construction and financing of housing under California’s affordable housing programs.” If successful, it will “reduce, prevent, and ultimately end homelessness, while safeguarding civil rights and reinforcing California’s leadership in consumer protections.” Yeah, maybe. Also, this will “create a new housing continuum system to better align housing programs and financing and provide a more streamlined process with an all-of-government approach.”
Again, maybe. I’m skeptical. To be fair, the Newsom administration says California performed better than 40 other states in 2024 by limiting its increase in homelessness to 3 percent when it increased more than 18 percent nationally. “California also achieved the nation’s largest reduction in veteran homelessness and made meaningful progress in reducing youth homelessness.” That’s important if true, and it deserves kudos.
But according to the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), half of Californians in a recent survey said inflation has caused financial hardship, and 40 percent said “housing costs are a financial strain,” with one in three being financially worse off today than a year ago (the majority, 54 percent, said they were about the same — and a response of “meh” isn’t a thundering vote of approval of current policies and politicians). And “[r]enters (63%) are more than twice as likely than homeowners (28%) to say the cost of housing places financial strain on them.” Not surprisingly, the lower the income, the higher the reported financial strain.
An existing state agency, the California Department of Housing and Community Development, notes on its website, “While the state’s housing challenges appear overwhelming, California’s housing crisis is a solvable issue.” To which one is increasingly tempted to ask, Is it? The same agency notes that over the past decades, “housing production averaged fewer than 80,000 new homes each year, and ongoing production continues to fall far below the projected need of 180,000 additional homes annually.”
Half of Californians in a recent survey said inflation has caused financial hardship, and 40 percent said housing costs are a financial strain.
This despite all that Newsom has done. Despite all that Senator Scott Wiener and the legislative housing caucus has done. Despite all the housing development groundbreakings and openings that mayors have attended.
In 2019, PPIC reported that 68 percent of the state’s residents said housing affordability was a big problem. Again, there is housing being built, just not enough of it to deal with the millions of Californians who feel financially strained and who are paying more than 30 or even 50 percent of their household incomes on rent.
So maybe an agency reshuffling will do the trick. But maybe not.
Headline of the week
“This High-Priced Metro’s Popularity Surges Among Local Homebuyers: Why They’re Staying Put as Others Flee Big Cities” (Realtor.com)
Go figure
1,224 feet: height of the main tower of a proposed skyscraper at 77 Beale Street, which would make it the city’s new tallest building (SF Yimby) . . . 2: number of homes — one in California, one near Washington, D.C. — that Senator Adam Schiff allegedly claimed as his primary residence, an accusation Schiff denies (Los Angeles Times) . . . 500 percent: increase in arrests and citations for illegal lodging (homelessness-related) in San Francisco between the six months before the issuance of the Grants Pass Supreme Court ruling and the six months following the ruling (CalMatters) . . . 10 percent: amount of increase in the median condominium sales price in San Francisco from the second quarter 2024 to the second quarter 2025 (Compass) . . . 18.77 percent: amount of decrease in the number of San Francisco condos on the market from June 2024 to June 2025 (Kinoko Real Estate) . . . Bad Bodiez Leasing: account name of a woman running a fake leasing scam in Maryland; the woman, Tennille Charlotte Williams, reportedly arranged scam leases for housing. In a sting operation by a property manager and a real estate agent, Williams was caught when she came to collect a $4,000 rental fee and police were called to catch her making an unauthorized entry into the property. However, Williams was arrested not for that fraud, but for an unrelated probation violation related to a 2020 case of embezzling money from a “charity that sponsors schools, orphanages and hostels to provide food, education , and shelter ‘for children in dire need.’” (WJLA News).
Say what?
“If the most important factor [in homelessness] is a lack of affordable housing, the most powerful remedy would be to build more affordable housing, but institutional, political and economic barriers remain rock-solid. California — not just Los Angeles — has been falling behind on housing production for many years despite state-level efforts to reduce those barriers, the latest being an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act for certain kinds of high-density projects.”
— Dan Walters, CalMatters, “LA Times valiantly explains how Los Angeles became the epicenter of homelessness”
