California s Affordable Housing Crisis: Why Prices Are So High and How to Solve It
The median price for a house now tops $600,000, more than twice the national level. The state has four of the country s five most expensive residential markets Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Orange County and San Diego. (Los Angeles is seventh.) The poverty rate, when adjusted for the cost of living, is the worst in the nation. California accounts for 12% of the U.S. population, but a quarter of its homeless population.
Let us pray. Oh heavenly Father, we ask that You provide, in your mercy, a strong but not too strong housing market for those of us fortunate enough to have bought into that market 20 to 30 years ago. Let prices rise steadily but not too quickly inflate, as that inevitably would be followed by a catastrophic price collapse as occurred in 2007. Grant that the homeless find shelter somewhere but preferably not in my backyard. Send the Holy Spirit to enlighten the knuckle-headed idiots in Sacramento who presently seem determined to choke the life out of our economy with ridiculous and special interest motivated, rent seeking regulation. Allow the American people to flourish by helping them to get out from underneath the grinding boot of government, but as a second-best solution, keep housing prices up until I and my family can figure out how to get off of this sinking ship, if sink it must. Amen.