Low rates for housing permits, skyrocketing costs, low rate of home ownership
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom ran for governor in 2018 on meeting the Golden State’s dire need for more affordable housing — but after nearly seven full years of his leadership, the state is still in a housing crisis.
Newsom pledged to create 3.5 million new housing units by 2025, but has drastically underperformed this goal, with production continuing to stall even after his administration lowered their target. Although Newsom has made clear his desire to ease the housing crunch, Californians continue to face low rates for housing permits, skyrocketing costs and one of the lowest home ownership rates in the nation.
The effort for 3.5 million units was short-lived. Newsom called the aspiration “a stretch goal” in 2022 when he announced a new target of building 2.5 million new housing units by 2030.
In Newsom’s original 3.5 million-unit timeline, California saw 737,295 new privately owned housing units, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, equaling roughly a fifth of his initial goal. The production in the first eight months of 2025 alone is nearly 16,000 less units than that same time period in 2022.
Throughout Newsom’s governorship, 2022 saw the highest number of new housing permits a year with 120,780 units built, per the Census Bureau. California would have to more than double its current housing production to meet its reduced 2.5 million target, equaling roughly 310,000 units a year.
A new retirement study found that California is undergoing the “highest negative net migration rate” across all generations.
Republican California State Sen. Tony Strickland, who represents much of Orange County and has served in the state legislature under five governors, pointed to the permitting process as a significant roadblock for builders. He told the Daily Caller News Foundation it took developers in Huntington Beach ten years to go through the California Coastal Commission (CCC) and the permitting process to build a residential and commercial development project.
