RE: “Crisis of Affordable Housing”

I am so sick of hearing all this baloney about the “crisis” of affordable housing. If our governor and legislators had any backbones (or ethics), they would have implemented a simple law decades ago that would have mandated that for every unit of full-priced housing built in California, builders would also be required to erect one unit of low-income housing. That means that for every mansion built, a company would also have to build 1 apartment (not one apartment building––ONE APARTMENT UNIT) of low-income housing (for a small profit). With the cost of housing in California and the profits (still) to be made, does Sacramento really think these builders would flee the state in droves? Not a chance.

All of this is just what it always has been: a lot of talk. In Alameda County, the annual income ceiling for one person to qualify for low-income housing is now $51,800; in Sonoma County, it's $70,000. I was a tenured teacher in Los Angeles; I never made $70,000/year in my life.

Apparently the only way the State of California’s policymakers will ever really take action regarding this atrocity will be when they are told that they either act NOW or they will ALL be tried and most certainly convicted on the grounds of cruel and unusual punishment committed against their constituents.

–David Fritz, Castro Valley