There is an affordability crisis in California, coupled with a worsening housing shortage, a homelessness epidemic, and sky-high rents. A candidate for Congress is proposing tangible steps to address the problem.
Charlene Nijmeh is the Chairwoman of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, and she is demanding that the 30-year incumbent answers for her failures on the housing. Pointedly, Nijmeh wants to restore hope for young people who, she explains, feel that home ownership will never be attainable to them.
“I feel the American dream slipping away for our young people,” Nijmeh explains.
Despite California’s advanced economy and robust tech industry, housing costs here are crushing working families. Egregiously high rents are pushing longtime population demographics – like San Jose’s indigenous people and its historic Mexica/n community – out of the region or out of the State altogether.
In 2022, California ranked first in housing shortages in the United States, according to a report from Up for Growth. According to the consulting company McKinsey, the shortage of two million homes is forecasted to increase to 3.5 million by 2025.
California ranks 49th out of 50 states in housing affordability. With a population of over 40 million, barely seven million residents own their own homes. According to the real estate agency RubyHome, in 2023 more than 39.5 million California residents occupied 13.5 million housing units. That makes the State’s housing stock the most over-crowded in the United States.
One of the main reasons for this situation is the shortage of affordable housing for middle-income and lower-income populations who cannot afford to buy real estate. Young people who are just starting their personal lives also find themselves in difficult situations. For them, renting a home in California is an extremely heavy financial burden and buying real estate is practically impossible.
At the same time, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development, more than 1.2 million housing units were vacant in California in 2022. One reason for such disparity was the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a significant exodus of residents from cities to rural areas.
Meanwhile, California is a leader among states in the number of homeless people.
As of the summer of 2023, according to CNN, California is home to 170,000 homeless individuals—just under a third of the total nationwide. From 2018 to 2022, the state spent a record $17.5 billion to ‘combat’ homelessness. During this time the number of homeless individuals increased. The COVID-19 pandemic and the chain of economic and social problems it caused exacerbated the crisis.
Funding for homelessness prevention through 2024 amounts to $20.6 billion, and the spending programs are unlikely to help break the situation in the foreseeable future.
The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe’s Chairwoman, Charlene Concepción Nijmeh, has outlined a Housing Supply and Affordability Act of 2025, which she plans to introduce on the floor of Congress upon her election to the House of Representatives.
“Even our most senior members of Congress ignore the housing crisis. They have no strategy to solve this problem. They don’t even have the courage to acknowledge it,” Nijmeh said. “America is moving backwards in terms of the types of homes that our next generation will be able to afford.”
Silicon Valley is the epicenter for technology development and innovation in the United States. It is home to companies like Apple, Cisco, Facebook, Adobe, and a slew of other tech giants. Throughout her career, Rep. Lofgren has repeatedly lobbied for their interests and has received substantial donations in turn.
This relationship has not benefited longtime residents, who suffer from the gentrification of the region, which is largely driven by the tech industry.
Nijmeh notes that residents of deteriorating communities, such as in San Jose, are forced to move in search of housing and a better life outside the cities. This is evidence of gentrification and elitism, with indigenous peoples and the underprivileged becoming victims under the pressure of corporations.
“I’m going to fight for the young people who feel like home ownership will never be attainable. Together, we’re going to bring back the American Dream,” Nijmeh explains. “The only way to lower prices in a dramatic and sustained way is to drastically increase supply of housing,”
Nijmeh’s plan is structured in four parts.
First, Nijmeh wants to encourage municipalities to up-zone urban areas. Her plan would reward communities that are willing to accommodate new high-density affordable housing with ‘Infrastructure Block Grants’ that would fund transit and sewer improvements – in addition to financing for new below-market rental units.
“In the Bay Area, many municipalities will benefit from these grants for infrastructure. Cities like San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose, and Sacramento could receive billions in federal funding – along with modern, functional, possibly extensive public transportation systems. We need to build, build, build more homes so that every resident has housing they can afford,” Nijmeh explains.
Second, Nijmeh’s plan would create a federal Affordable Housing Tax Credit. That credit would incentivize private sector investment in affordable housing by offering matching federal dollars for the construction of rental units that are offered deeply below market prices. That federal investment could amount to as much $1 trillion and would finance 6.6 million new homes.
Third, Nijmeh’s plan would accelerate financing tools for supportive housing managed by non-profit service providers, to address the segment of the population that is chronically unhoused as a result of mental health disorders or drug addictions.
Fourth, Nijmeh’s legislation would make some federal lands available near small cities in rural areas to enable the ‘tiny house’ trend that has been growing in popularity. Making plots available for new manufactured, modular, or mobile housing will alleviate demand pressures in rural communities that are also facing supply constraints. In California, this would create badly needed housing opportunities for farm workers and transitional housing for formerly incarcerated individuals.
At the same time, Rep. Zoe Lofgren is implementing an opposing policy. In 2018, she voted against transferring federal infrastructure to the control of state and local governments, which could have addressed housing shortages, especially in rural communities. If unused federal buildings and federal lands could be used by local authorities, it would go a long way to empowering local governments to construct needed housing units.
The housing shortage is worsening across the United States. According to Route Fifty, there are 8,000 vacant federal buildings (schools, nursing homes, military installations, etc.) in the United States that could be used for resettling the homeless or for other social needs.
According to The Los Angeles Times, the federal government has 770,000 vacant buildings on its balance sheet, with an annual budget of $1.7 billion spent on their maintenance. For decades, the government has been unable to solve this problem due to excessive bureaucratic complexities. Many agencies do not know which real estate belongs to them and what to do with it.
As of August 2023, there were 577,000 homeless people in the USA. The number of homeless has increased by 11% over the last year. According to The Wall Street Journal, this is a consequence of rising rental prices and the cessation of pandemic subsidies.
A potential solution to the problem could have been a bill transferring federal real estate to State and local governments, against which Zoe Lofgren voted in 2018.
Complicating matters, the United States is currently facing another wave of migrant influx. According to Voice of America, in 2022 over a million migrants arrived in the country, which is 168% more than in 2021. CBS News reports that, for example, in New York in 2023, hotels accommodated 60,000 migrants and over 50,000 homeless individuals. In Chicago 7,000 migrants were housed in police stations and parks.
Adding to Lofgren’s weakness on the housing issue are two votes that will be hard for her to explain to those voters who are teetering on brink of homelessness. In both 2015 and 2017, Lofgren voted against the Preserving Access to Manufactured Housing Act, which would have made it easier for people to finance and purchase prefabricated housing units.
In 2018, Lofgren voted against the THRIVE Act, the Transitional Housing for Recovery in Viable Environments Demonstration Program Act. That law would have authorized the use of Section 8 housing vouchers to provide temporary housing to individuals recovering from opioid addictions.
Those bills were introduced by Republicans, and Lofgren is a fever-pitched partisan who regularly refuses to collaborate across party lines.
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