[seriesf]

This is a problem of supply. “An unprecedented $1 billion” will buy you at most three thousand new dwellings, probably fewer given high cost and inefficiency of housing construction in California.

California has been under-building housing for decades, to the extent that people will call this current activity a housing “boom” even though it’s only slightly above historic lows.

[Zarath]

I wonder how many people you could pay to just sweep streets and clean up garbage for 1 billion.

[seriesf]

Housing is so expensive that you'd have to pay ~$50k/year even for those jobs. That's the big problem: anything you do on the demand side, like paying people higher wages, or giving them housing vouchers, goes directly into the landlords' pockets.

[vuln]

Little Rock is doing this.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/little-rock-homeless-pic...

[KirinDave]

> inefficiency of housing construction in California.

California housing isn't "inefficient." The housing codes are made with the idea of keeping houses up through natural disasters and serviceable for a long time. We might modify that last provision (as Tokyo does, for example) but it comes with it's own problems.

The idea that somehow housing regulation increasing costs is the core or even a major contributor to the problem is one that requires substantial evidence.

Unless you're referring to "Californian contractors are overpaid," which seems more like a reflection of the expensive cost of living here than "inefficiency."

[seriesf]

Well you are very wrong there. The inefficiency is in the permit process. In San Francisco it takes years to get your project approved, and that time is money. Many projects also just don’t get approved, and the carrying costs and fees of those failures don’t even get added to the average cost per dwelling that eventually gets reported. In many jurisdictions permitting and planning consume a full third of the cost and take years.

[scurvy]

If it's supply, why are there high numbers of homeless in lower cost areas like Sacramento that have lots of supply?

[seriesf]

The last available vacancy rate in Sacramento was 2.9%, the lowest ever reported. They don’t have “lots of supply”.