Posted by: Bob Silvestri
The Marin Post

https://marinpost.org/blog/2023/6/15/the-real-affordability-crisis

“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth” ~ Joseph Goebbels.

Last week, I wrote about the dismal track record of California’s state housing laws to increase the construction of new housing and the formidable economic headwinds that legislators don’t seem to understand. But, this is only half the story.

Politicians in Sacramento have been wailing on local governments about the need to build “affordable housing” as a scapegoat to avoid dealing with their own public policy failures. In addition to attacking local control of planning and zoning laws, they are even trying to eliminate the citizen’s ballot initiative process in the single-minded belief that their policies are the only answer. But, what if they are just plain wrong?

I’m not talking about the fact that the State Auditor’s Office says Sacramento’s estimate that we need to build 3.5 million homes is a work of fiction or that California’s Governor has turned a blind eye to the facts and chosen instead to rely on ginned up studies by international think tanks that are little more than marketing arms for corporate interests.

I’m asking a simpler question. What if the affordable housing “crisis” isn’t the disease but only a symptom of a bigger disease?

Read the full story

Bob Silvestri is a Marin County resident, the Editor of the Marin Post, and the founder and president of Community Venture Partners, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community organization funded by individuals and nonprofit donors. Please consider DONATING TO THE MARIN POST AND CVP to enable us to continue to work on behalf of all California residents.