California, epicenter of the nation’s housing crisis, is finally getting a housing agency
After years of soaring rents, increasingly out-of-reach home prices and an enduring homelessness crisis that touches every corner of the state, California is finally creating a state agency exclusively focused on housing issues.
Earlier this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom introduced a proposal to split up the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency — an awkward grab bag of disparate bureaucratic operations — into two fresh agencies: one just for housing and homelessness-related departments and one for everything else.
The Legislature had until July 4 to veto the plan. It didn’t (though some Republicans tried). Now the work of setting up California’s first housing agency begins.
Supporters of the bureaucratic reshuffle say the move is long overdue. In surveys, Californians regularly name housing costs and homelessness as among the state’s top concerns. That alone warrants the creation of a new Cabinet-level advisor to the governor, said Ray Pearl, executive director of the California Housing Consortium, which advocates for affordable housing development.
“A Cabinet-level secretary who will sit with other Cabinet secretaries, whose purview will be housing … that is elevating the agenda to the highest level,” he said.
