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.
“When it takes you ten years to build a development, that’s going to be passed on to the consumer,” Strickland told the DCNF.
As a lack of affordable housing in the state grows, so does Californians’ ability to own a home, according to a recent report from the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office. Homes in the Golden State have become twice as expensive as the typical U.S. home with mortgage rates and home prices driving the growth in monthly payments since 2020.
More than four in ten Californians are concerned about not being able to pay their rent or mortgage, per a recent statewide Public Policy Institute survey.
The Democratic governor has signed two housing bills into law this year; AB 130 cuts red tape and exempts housing projects from strict California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) oversight to streamline unit production, and SB 79which focuses on building high-density housing near public transit systems.
Strickland nodded to AB 130’s effort to roll back the CEQA, but claimed the bill only answers only one part of the housing solution while it worsens another.
A vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax, which imposes a fee on developers building in areas with fewer transit options, is also tucked into AB 130. There are no guardrails to prevent this tax from being passed from developers to homebuyers and renters, resulting in higher mortgages and increased rent.
“When you’re talking about people who want to buy a home, we shouldn’t call it a home crisis, we have an affordability crisis,” Strickland said. “The [VMT] hidden tax will go into your mortgage, will go into your home buying.”
“This is a new housing tax Los Angeles families simply cannot afford, adding $197,000 to the cost of a new home and driving monthly rents up by $1350,” the Los Angeles Business Federation said of the VMT tax. “This misguided VMT housing tax will disproportionately hurt low-income families and households of color, while stalling housing construction and deepening California’s housing crisis.”
Strickland also told the DCNF Newsom’s policies encouraging high-density housing near transportation systems, like SB 79, are “all geared to urbanization” and many Californians do not want to lose their suburban areas.
“A lot of Californians want to live in rural areas or they want to live in suburban areas,” he said. “If [Newsom] really wants to solve this housing crisis, he needs to do all he can in terms of lowering the price on construction cost, he needs to do whatever he can in terms of labor and he also needs to fast track a lot of the overregulation.”
The Democratic governor has one full year left before his term expires, and while increased housing production has yet to be seen, Californians may need to expect new fees handed off by developers as well.
“[Newsom] comes out with a lot of fanfare,” Strickland said. “But I’ve always said, don’t look at his rhetoric, look at his record.”
“The Governor has created a generational and foundational model to meet the goal of creating the housing that California needs – and has set the state up for success,” a spokesperson from Newsom’s office told the DCNF. “The Governor has adopted new accountability strategies, streamlined building and permitting, and made historic investments to help communities build more housing and make homes more affordable. We’ve made progress, but more work needs to be done.”
Newsom had created the Housing and Homelessness Accountability Unit in 2021. In a September 2024 press release, the governor’s office announced that the unit had “unlocked” over 7,500 housing units in the state over the past two years.
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