The California Department of Housing and Community Development distributes a weekly news update from various sources. This week one of the articles was entitled “Housing crisis needs California lawmakers to build consensus now.” The opinion article is from the San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board, January 27, 2017.
The short opinion piece clearly outlines what the state legislature needs to do to commence and over time correct the current severe housing crisis. To review the opinion, the entire opinion has been attached.
It cites the McKinsey Global Institute four-step solution offered in 2014: freeing up more land for housing, reducing the rules and regulations that inflate the cost of housing construction, improving the efficiency of construction by using best practices and making it easier for home buyers and builders alike to secure financing. Despite this clear and simple roadmap to overcome the Housing Crisis none of these recommendations have been adopted in California.
The Housing Crisis creates a business crisis in the loss of potential employees to other areas which are more affordable; in the necessity to pay higher wages so that workers can find some kind of housing without regard to habitability issues or location; necessary “government” workers such as police, fire, teachers may not be able to afford housing; lower middle income and low income families may or may not be able to find housing without multi-family occupancy and such other types of accomodations. Clearly, the list of negative impact of the housing crisis is not complete. What it does show for business is higher costs, difficultly finding certain types of employees and the negative impact on employees living in subpar conditions.