Legislators must feel housing crisis like the rest of us
Most Californians agree that housing is the state’s biggest crisis. But our leaders can’t reach consensus on how best to address it. And few of us want to be the first to try out a new housing strategy; we fear new approaches will disrupt our lives.
What California needs then is a housing laboratory, an experimental set-up for new housing concepts. But labs need lab rats. Since no one will volunteer, I modestly suggest an influential subset of Californians as our guinea pigs: the 120 members of the state Legislature, and their staffers.
Who better to represent us in determining our housing future than our representatives?
Just imagine if we required lawmakers to live their own ideas, before applying them to us.
State Sen. Scott Wiener, DSan Francisco, is certain Californians need the power to override local zoning to produce taller, denser housing in transit corridors. So why not require Wiener to move his family, his staffers and the co-sponsors of his housing legislation, SB 50, into the tallest apartment building along any transit corridor in Sacramento? Also, prohibit Wiener’s team from driving — so they can rely on unreliable bus service, as so many Californians do.
We can conduct a similar experiment on homeless housing by letting legislative supporters live in it. And since governments are slow to build such housing, lawmakers should sleep on the Capitol grounds until new units are actually constructed.
Lawmakers have done little to reduce the costs of building housing, so why not have them try out new forms of cheaper housing, like modular or prefab units? I’d love to see state Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, who like other politicians proposes spending big money for small numbers of expensive-to- construct affordable units, squeeze into one of those 300-squarefoot micro-homes touted in the Bay Area. Maybe these pols could get behind more and cheaper housing if they lived in tiny places.
The same logic should apply to “granny flats,” or accessory dwelling units. Any lawmakers who own homes should be required to add granny flats, and pay their construction workers the expensive prevailing wages that they sometimes require of other builders. By the same token, all lawmakers who are landlords — 25% of the Legislature, according to CALmatters — should be made to follow the rent control regulations many Democrats are now pushing. And YIMBY lawmakers who want to build housing should be made to live near big new housing developments, so they can better understand how to mitigate the impacts of large-scale construction.
And there may be no better learning experience in housing than having your home taken by the state by eminent domain. So each year — for their own edification — 5% of the Legislature (or six out of the 120 lawmakers) should have their homes condemned. Then they can deal with legal headaches, and yearslong waits for compensation.
Now, any grand experiment requires a control group. Our Legislature’s housing deniers — legislators who oppose virtually all efforts to address the crisis — should be forced to move in with relatives or to live at least an hour away from their offices. When state Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-La Canada Flintridge, who blocked this year’s most ambitious housing bill, works in Sacramento, he should have to stay in Vacaville or Stockton, and drive himself the 50 miles to the Capitol along busy freeways.
Some lawmakers will want taxpayers to help subsidize their experiences in housing reality. We shouldn’t. Instead, it should be required that at least half of all lawmakers’ income gets devoted to housing, leaving them poorer when it comes to meeting other needs, like so many Californians.
Would feeling the housing pain firsthand really inspire lawmakers to find consensus and take action? I hope so. But even if it doesn’t, at least those failing to address the crisis would be suffering with the rest of us.