How to really help black homeownership
... and everybody else's
Especially in California, homeownership is difficult for most families. But is the main problem racism? Calmatters just ran a headline, “What California lawmakers could do to boost homeownership for Black families.”
It blames racism, even though whites are 40% of the state, and dwindling.
“That crisis is, in part, the result of a decade of housing supply not keeping up with demand,” it concedes. “But for communities of color, and especially Black people, housing is less an emergency than a chronic illness compounded by centuries of discriminatory, if not outright racist, policies.”
At least there’s a hint: low supply. And why is that? Because of the real reason: Past actions by the Legislature that sharply have limited supply even as the state’s population doubled the last 50 years. True, the past year, for the first time ever, the Golden State lost a little population. But housing growth still has been too low for previous growth.
How many people of any color can afford the median price of $1 million for house in most areas along the coast?
Just some of the mandates from the Legislature over the years:
The California Coastal Commission, an actual Soviet bureaucracy, must approve all coastal construction, which ripples dozens of miles inland, raising prices everywhere.
“Low income” housing mandates, requiring a certain numbers of new units must be set aside for the poor, are paid for by shifting the cost to middle-income units, raising those prices. Yeah, helping the poor hurts them. Only in California!
CEQA — the California Environmental Quality Act — adds immense expenses for developers to meet unreal standards.
Project Labor Agreements (union pay scales) at least double construction costs on low-income housing.
Instead of griping about “racism,” the only way to help blacks and others — basically, anybody making <$500,000 a year in income — would be to repeal these and numerous other laws. That’s unlikely because the unions, environmentalists and other special interests won’t allow reform. So — it’s racism!
Of course, there is a simple way for Californians of all races, creeds and colors to afford a home: leave.
