TL;DR: Following the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008, large institutional investors, such as the private equity firm Blackstone, purchased foreclosed homes in distressed neighborhoods throughout the country. Many of these neighborhoods were the same historically Black and Latino neighborhoods that…
California YIMBY Joins Asm. Laura Friedman to End Costly Parking Mandates
“Affordable Housing for Humans, Not Unaffordable Parking for Cars” Mandates Add Up to $80,000 Per Parking Spot to Cost of Housing, Rent “200 Square Mile Parking Crater” SACRAMENTO – Today, California YIMBY and Assemblymember Laura Friedman (D-Glendale), along with Sen.…
California YIMBY Joins Sen. Wiener to Launch 2021 Legislative Housing Package
Statewide Housing Advocates, Equity Leaders Join the Call for More Homes SACRAMENTO – Today California YIMBY joined State Senator Scott Wiener (San Francisco), along with housing and equity advocates from across the state, in launching a package of bills in…
Did Displacement Play a Role in California’s COVID-19 Surge?
For the past two months, Southern California was America’s COVID-19 epicenter. Throughout the month of January, someone in Los Angeles County died every six minutes from COVID-19 related complications. The pandemic ravaged the Los Angeles area to such a degree that air-quality…
Black Housing Heroes: Tia Boatman Patterson
I have experienced everything from homelessness to homeownership. I grew up in public housing with a single mom who purchased her first home through a first-time homebuyer program in the mid ’70s. It used to be that a single woman…
The Elements of Housing Elements: A Phase Change to Greater Production?
Recent reforms to California’s Housing Element Law may change political incentives in municipal governments to permit more housing production as a default stance, with the cover of state regulators forcing their hand. That’s the compelling analysis offered by Elmendorf et…
Parking Requirements are a Mandate for Expensive Housing
An abundance of academic literature strongly suggests that parking requirements hurt American households by raising the cost of housing and increasing demand for automobile travel by artificially lowering the cost of car storage. Essentially, by reserving land for parking irrespective…
How Many New Homes Should California Build?
With each passing year, California’s housing crisis has grown worse. Past decisions by our state’s cities and counties to reduce the number of homes it is legal to build have caused high rents, low affordability, and an exodus of middle-income…
The Little Engine That Could (Fund Itself)
Can public transit fund itself by building housing on its land? That’s the fundamental question Common Ground California asks in their new white-paper, “Transit Value Capture for California.” The idea from authors Derek Sagehorn and Joshua Hawn is simple: public…
Evictions and Pandemic: Deadly, and Preventable
COVID-19 has wrought incalculable tragedy and destruction on Californians, much of which has been exacerbated by an eviction crisis that could have been largely prevented with more robust interventions. A new working paper from UCLA public health scholars finds that…