The real California resistance

California Democrats’ ballyhooed “resistance” to the Trump administration pales next to their resistance to housing a reasonable share of the state’s population. This week, on the day that saw confirmation of a distressing surge in homelessness across the Bay Area and California, the Legislature abandoned its most meaningful effort to deal with the worst housing shortage in the continental United States.

State Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Anthony Portantino, a Democrat who represents a number of exclusive Los Angeles suburbs, announced Thursday that the committee would shelve SB50, state Sen. Scott Wiener’s bill to overrule restrictive zoning and legalize higher-density housing near transit and jobs. Hours later, officials released preliminary data showing the Bay Area’s homeless population grew by thousands over the past two years: up 17% in San Francisco, 31% in Santa Clara County and 43% in Alameda County.

This is not a coincidence. California is home to an eighth of the nation’s population but a quarter of its homeless people, and study after study has shown a relationship between housing supply and homelessness. While some of the homeless struggle with drug addiction or mental illness, many are “just poor and can’t afford housing,” said Wiener, D-San Francisco. “They’re forced onto the streets because of our failure to build housing.”

Despite the Legislature’s first — and so far last — major effort to deal with the crisis in 2017, the state’s housing supply grew by less than a percentage point last year, under half the needed rate. But legislative leaders, cowed by local politicians and incumbent homeowners who resist development at every turn, have repeatedly declined opportunities to respond.

That is despite broad public and political support for Wiener’s approach. After an earlier version of SB50 was killed in its first committee last year, extensive amendments won support from unions, environmentalists and the mayors of the Bay Area’s largest cities. This year, the bill survived two committees with a major concession to smaller counties to appease Senate Government and Finance Chairman Mike McGuire, who represents notoriously anti-housing Marin County.

But Portantino halted the bill’s progress without so much as a vote, revealing once again that despite endless claims to the contrary, legislative leaders’ reservations have less to do with the details of SB50 than the substance. Perhaps they would like to do something about the legion of Californians living in cars and tents, but not if it means defying the petty prerogatives of local officials who block routine residential construction for any and no reason.

Last month, San Francisco supervisors killed an apartment building because it would cast a bit of shadow; next week, thanks to a labor dispute, Alameda County supervisors could protect a long-vacant San Lorenzo parking lot from residential construction on environmental grounds.

Rather than “legislating mandates,” Portantino prefers to “provide incentives” for local governments to permit housing. His record suggests what that might look like: He has authored bills to aid homeless college students and create a special “California Housing Crisis Awareness” license plate to generate revenue for affordable housing.

Whatever their good intentions, such measures aim to manage the housing and homelessness crisis rather than fix it. If Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins and Gov. Gavin Newsom allow SB50 to die, they should be welcomed to California’s most successful resistance.