California needs to build public housing

Re “Is there anything lawmakers can do to lower the price of housing?” (April 29): Of course there is something lawmakers can do: Build public housing, and lots of it. The state has a huge surplus. Spend some on construction of thousands of apartments in high-rise buildings on cityowned land.

The Padres’ Tailgate Park and the Sports Arena properties are excellent examples of locations where huge numbers of small, low-cost apartments could be built. Get the developers out of the loop completely, i.e., forget about profit. These buildings need to be 100 percent affordable. Chances are that in, say, 10 to 20 years, these buildings could be sold at considerable gain to private entities to manage. And maybe then the units become closer to “market-rate” pricing. But in the meantime, the government simply must bite the bullet: build housing, maintain it and operate it for a period of years.

Jim Price Talmadge