As an elected official who’s spent six years on Claremont City Council, I’ve come to understand the truth about our housing shortage and affordability crisis in Southern California – and across our state: housing is unaffordable because it’s scarce – and new homes are nearly impossible to build.
California’s median home price hit $899,560 in June 2025, which means working families would need $237,000 in annual income to qualify for a mortgage—but that’s over twice the state’s median household income. Meanwhile, Los Angeles permitted fewer homes in 2024 than it did in 2023.
But this is not a case of “there’s nothing to be done” – because the reason for our housing shortage is due to who is doing something: When you examine who participates in housing approval processes, you’ll find a disturbing pattern. Boston University researchers in 2017 and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill researchers in 2024 analyzed thousands of public meetings about housing. They found that older, male, longtime-resident homeowners dominate participation in these meetings…