To relieve the housing and homelessness crises, we have backed practically every pro-housing reform in this state. But real reform builds housing by advancing private property rights. A model law this year Gov. Gavin Newsom signed was Senate Bill 406, by state Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose. It streamlined California Environmental Quality Act reviews for low-income housing.
Which is why Gov. Gavin Newsom’s program building what are called “tiny homes” is a questionable idea that ought to be watched closely.
The intent is good: Build really small homes for the homeless and desperately poor. On Oct. 10, the governor’s administration announced it is “finalizing a contract for the state and locals to purchase these small homes.”
There will be 1,200 tiny homes, 350 in Sacramento, 500 in Los Angeles, 150 in San Diego and 200 in San Jose. The total cost of $30 million will come from existing state funds. The template will be “available” to cities that want to build their own similar projects with their own funds.
“There are no silver-bullet solutions,” Vittorio Nastasi, the director of criminal justice policy at the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation, told us. “There is some evidence the housing first approaches to homelessness can be effective for some people, but typically homelessness is fairly complicated. And there are opportunities for unintended consequences.”
Historically, the moral hazard is the program could grow into the housing “projects” built starting in the 1940s supposedly to solve poverty, but which made it endemic.
The most notorious was Cabrini-Green Homes in Chicago, which at its peak housed 15,000 people.
Begun in 1942 and mostly demolished beginning in 1995, it became notorious for disrepair, crime and drug abuse.
Because the tiny homes will be owned by the government, they are not advancing property rights, but eroding them.
They also are perks for the receiving cities and local construction firms.
Orange County, Riverside County and San Bernardino County got nothing, but its taxes still pay for them.
We believe the state is better off advancing housing reforms, especially extensive CEQA reform, that benefit everyone.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature have, to date, consistently danced around comprehensive CEQA reform to reduce abuses of the law purely aimed at thwarting housing construction.
But the need for CEQA reform remain as clear as ever. If Gov. Newsom thinks he’s up for the challenges of the presidency of the United States, he should first prove that can CEQA reform done. That would be a truly impressive and helpful achievement.
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