Housing affordability, the shortage of affordable homes and homelessness have been a perennial national issue, but perhaps nowhere more apparent than in California, where housing costs are sky high and availability is limited.
While affordable housing is typically considered a bipartisan issue, Republicans and Democrats are often at odds over how to address it.
In Orange County, independent or third-party voters, those without longstanding loyalties to a major political party, make up nearly 30% of all registered voters, meaning they may well be the deciding factor in tight races. How top-of-mind will the affordable housing crisis be for independent and third-party voters as they mark their ballots in the 2024 election?
We’ve been following three Orange County independent and third-party voters from different backgrounds this election cycle as they determine who to support up and down the ballot and have been asking them about how various issues may be coloring their 2024 perspectives. So what about housing affordability?
While the three all say that affordable housing is an important topic to consider, it’s further down their list of key issues guiding their 2024 decisions. They say — in varying degrees — the 2024 election will be largely about who’s trying to make it into the highest office in the land.
“As much as I’d prefer it to be an election where I’m looking at people’s policies on a much more balanced level, this is 2020 Part Two,” said 22-year-old Abri Magdaleno.
As polls indicate President Joe Biden hasn’t been rating as well with voters on the economy, his administration has revealed a $258 billion proposal that outlines several plans for driving down home prices. Among those are incentivizing local governments to remove barriers to affordable housing production, expanding the low-income housing tax credit and down payment assistance for first-generation homebuyers.
And while former President Donald Trump’s campaign website is lean on specific housing policy, he’s promising lower taxes, job growth and higher wages to help “rebuild” the economy.
Eugene Hung, an independent voter who skews left, said while he believes money should be spent on the issue, he has “complicated feelings” about the Biden administration’s 12-figure investment proposal.
“I feel the pinch partly as somebody who’s 52 and still renting,” the Fullerton resident said. “I’ve never owned my own home, ever in my whole life.”
Hung, a math teacher at Foothill High in Santa Ana, said he’s not sure if he’ll ever own property.
“All these years, it was all about a down payment and the ability to get that,” he said. “Half of my paycheck goes to rent. Even if we give up on homeownership, which, mostly I have given up on to stay in California, if housing was more affordable I’d be able to save more and not live month-to-month.”
With one kid starting college in the fall and another who’s three years away, Hung said affordability is an especially hard-hitting topic now.
“Affordable housing impacts everything else. What retirement do we have saved up for? We don’t have very much because we’ve had to gut some of it just to pay for everything else,” he said. “Affordable housing is really much bigger than the housing part.”
However, Hung said he’s at a loss when it comes to what the best approach could be. He agrees with the Biden administration’s proposal to involve the federal government a tad more in the municipal decision-making process when it comes to housing, but said he is a bit wary of the federal deficit, which ballooned to $1.7 trillion in 2023.
“If money has to be spent, a big quantity of it, in order to make a difference, then I would say that’s an important thing to do,” he said. “What you cut back on is the next question, right? And there’s not a whole lot to cut back on.
“So that’s where I’m kind of stuck. Social Security, Medicare, the safety net, those are important,” he said. “And it’s not like I feel comfortable cutting defense spending these days either, given Russia and China and all these evolving asymmetric threats, the pirates, Houthis, that have not gone away.”
Hung’s tentative support of Biden’s plan is shared by Magdaleno, a UC Irvine student who lives in their parents’ home in Yorba Linda (Magdaleno uses they/them pronouns). As a soon-to-be-graduate, housing has lately taken up more space in their mind.
Magdaleno said they still appreciate the president making housing affordability a priority, their only complaint being what they describe as a lack of a deeper focus on college graduates who are entering the workforce and unable to find a place near their place of work that they can afford.
Magdaleno, who’s graduating this summer with a degree in English, said they’re looking to move out of their parents’ home, but doesn’t know where they would go and wouldn’t be surprised if later on they were forced to return to their parent’s home.
“There’s no way we’re going to own a house. I don’t even consider that. People say you should only spend 30% of your income on rent — that’s impossible,” Magdaleno said. “A lot of people in my classes are commuters, because no one can afford to live here.”
Housing affordability is also considered a “hugely important issue” by the only homeowner in the bunch, Chris Jannuzzi, a business executive who has mainly supported Republicans candidates at the top of the ticket.
Jannuzzi, who lives in Corona del Mar, an affluent seaside neighborhood in Newport Beach, said the market has grown a lot more difficult for anyone to purchase a home.
“We bought our first place in 1998 with a 5% down payment and we had to pay private mortgage insurance, but we didn’t need $200,000 in the bank,” he said. “Now, to buy just about any place in Orange County, well, you got to have $200,000 in the bank. That takes quite a while for a young person to build up. And let’s face it, rents aren’t getting any lower.”
Federal government spending fuels inflation and ultimately crushes the lower- and middle-class, argued Jannuzzi. “It’s no secret that $5 trillion in three rounds of stimulus packages put so much money into the economy and drove things up.”
Instead of “throwing more money at housing,” Jannuzzi said the government should focus more on pressuring states to ease regulations that make it so expensive to build housing. He remembered, he said, hearing some affordable housing projects in the state were costing more than $1 million to build a single apartment – the Los Angeles Times had a 2022 report on that.
“Well,” Jannuzzi said, “you’re never going to get affordable housing with that.”
Source: Orange County Register
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