California has a housing crisis: 2020 Democrats want to spend more to fix it

Californians rank housing and homelessness as top issues in their state, and the candidates vying for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination are promoting plans to spend billions of dollars to make housing more affordable.

Although the issue often gets less airtime than other topics more relevant to voters in early primary and swing states, all the top candidates have laid out plans to make housing more affordable, from offering incentives to cities to speed up construction to pouring more money into subsidies for low-income Americans.

Here’s a look at the details they have provided about how they would address housing affordability from the Oval Office.

Joe Biden

Former Vice President Joe Biden has said he doesn’t think anyone should have to pay more than 30 percent of their income in rent. He’s also advocated for giving first-time home buyers a $15,000 down payment from the federal government.

He’s said that in general he believes the government needs to spend more money on housing and that more people should be able to access government housing vouchers. His campaign did not respond to questions about how much he would like the government to spend or how he would pay for it.

His campaign page on boosting the middle class says he plans to announce additional housing plans in the future.

Bernie Sanders

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders wants the federal government to spend $2.5 trillion building more housing. He also wants nationwide rent control.

Sanders calls the country’s affordable housing shortage a crisis that has widened the economic divide between the rich and poor. His plan includes spending $410 billion over a decade on federal rental assistance to eliminate the backlog of 7.7 million families who qualify but are stuck on waiting lists. He also wants to steer $3 billion to Native American housing. He would pay for it by taxing the top 0.1 percent of earners.

Additionally, he would ban landlords from discriminating against people who use federal vouchers to pay their rent. California lawmakers banned voucher discrimination at the state level last year.

His proposed rent control would cap annual rent increases at no more than 3 percent or 1.5 times the Consumer Price Index, whichever is higher. In 2018, California voters rejected a ballot measure to allow more rent control in the state.

Pete Buttigieg

Pete Buttigieg would spend $430 billion on housing. The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, says that would fund restoration and construction of 2 million units for low-income people. His plan would also fund federal subsidies to help 1 million people buy their own homes.

He rolled out his housing plans as part of a broader infrastructure platform. His campaign says he’ll fund those plans by repealing the Trump administration’s tax cuts, raising estate taxes, eliminating estate tax loopholes, and making changes to capital gains taxes.

He supports changing local zoning laws to make it easier to build new housing, but hasn’t said how he would accomplish that from Washington. He’s also called for adding new tenant protections, but hasn’t said specifically what he would support.

Amy Klobuchar

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar promises $1 trillion in housing and poverty spending, including on homeless aid and federal housing vouchers for families with children. She also wants to expand housing assistance for rural communities and Native Americans.

She says she would pay for it by ending the war in Afghanistan, repealing parts of the 2017 Trump tax bill, cracking down on tax loopholes and creating a new minimum tax for large corporations.

To incentivize more construction, she says she would prioritize doling out federal housing and infrastructure money to cities that cut zoning regulations. Newsom is trying a similar approach in California, although his efforts to withhold money for roads from cities not building enough housing failed amid opposition from fellow Democrats in the state Legislature.

Klobuchar says she would beef up laws banning discrimination against renters, including based on gender identity, race, income and use of housing vouchers. She also wants to fund legal services to help low-income renters fight eviction.

Elizabeth Warren

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants to spend $500 billion over a decade to build and renovate housing for low-income people. She says that will fund millions of new units and will reduce rental costs by 10 percent, according to a Moody’s analysis.

The plan would also add $2.5 billion to housing programs for Native Americans and would create a $4 billion “Middle-Class Housing Emergency Fund” to build units for middle class renters. It also includes $10 billion in competitive grants for cities that cut local zoning rules that make it harder to build housing.

To pay for it, Warren wants to raise estate taxes on people who inherit more than $7 million, a change from the current $22 million threshold. She has introduced legislation in Congress to enact the plan, although it has not moved in the Republican-majority Senate.

Michael Bloomberg

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg would address housing affordability by expanding tax breaks for affordable housing developers and boosting federal housing spending.

He argues the expanded tax breaks would increase affordable housing stock by hundreds of thousands of units over 10 years. He’s also calling for more federal spending on housing assistance for low-income people, including construction of new units and subsidies for renters.

He hasn’t said exactly how much he would spend on those programs, but he has advocated for $10 billion in competitive grants for local governments that make it easier to build housing. He wants to double federal homelessness spending to $6 billion annually.

Tom Steyer

Liberal activist Tom Steyer wants to spend $47 billion building and renovating affordable housing and expand tax credits for developers who build low-income housing.

Steyer also wants to dole out $10 billion in competitive grants to governments and organizations to support affordable housing efforts, which can include efforts to streamline construction rules. He also wants to expand federal housing vouchers to get families off the waiting list for those subsidies.

Steyer’s campaign says his housing plans will likely be paid for using revenue from his proposed tax on the wealthiest 0.1 percent of Americans and from his planned capital gains tax increases.

This story was originally published February 14, 2020 at 6:00 AM with the headline "California has a housing crisis: 2020 Democrats want to spend more to fix it."