Our view: Legislators’ inaction speaks louder than words on housing
The lights are flashing, ever redder and more urgent, on the Bay Area’s housing crisis. How bright do they have to get before our state policy-makers calibrate their actions to the scale of our need?
Further evidence of the metastasizing consequences of our housing shortage was provided this week, as if more was required. The annual poll by the Bay Area Council found that 46 percent of this region’s residents expect eventually to be forced away by skyrocketing housing prices and an inability to find housing they can afford that does not come with a life-crushing commute. That’s up from 40 percent last year and 34 percent in 2016. Among millennials, most — 52 percent — now do not expect they will be able to remain here. Residents made it clear that housing is not an issue, it is the issue: It was the top concern for 42 percent; nothing else topped 18.