The shortage of overwhelming housing in California forces thousands of families who work hard who cannot afford extreme housing costs to leave our state, leaving employers from local restaurants to technology giants to find employees.
The most visible impact of our inability to build enough houses in our streets, where the least wealthy victims live in tents, VRs and sleeping bags. They are our neighbors and they need more houses.
But that’s not what we offer.
Last month, Fremont joined many cities in California by making it illegal to be a human without a house. By prohibiting tents, VRs and even sleeping bags in public, Fremont sent a clear message: the housing shortage is not our problem. With only 100 accommodation beds for more than 800 housing residents, our city has chosen punishment rather than compassion. This repression criminalizes people with nowhere where to go. This answer reveals a deeper problem: we use the application to cover our inability to build enough houses in the bay region and California.
Fremont’s roaming response plan in 2024 emphasized prevention, housing and awareness. But the city has chosen criminalization, forcing suppliers and residence services to suspend assistance due to legal risks. A trial of non -compliant residents, supported by California Homeless Union and local religious leaders, now disputes the order.
The cities of the East bay are faced with an increase in the homeless rooted in long-term housing shortages. Throughout the 2010s, California cities have experienced the lowest decade of building houses since the 1960s, even though our economy has exploded. The Bay region has added only one new house for six new jobs.
The foreseeable result: the rents of the county of Alameda jumped from 26% from 2010 to 2021. Lower beneficiaries are the owners who take advantage of the rarity to increase the rents, many openly praising the lack of overall supply as “good for business”. The increase in rents is a main cause of homelessness, which we cannot approach before repairing the housing shortage.
To progress, the state must clean the roadblocks. A bill proposed, SB 79, would force cities to authorize more houses near large transit stops – areas already connected to jobs and services. Currently, local laws often prohibit apartments with less than half a million Bart stations, explaining why 59% of low-income households in the bay have no easy access in transit. This would also add up the increase in transport costs and pollution of long car journeys.
Another bill, SB 677, targets exclusive barriers in existing neighborhoods. About 65% of California owners live in owners’ associations (HOA) with rules blocking modest additions such as duplexes or backyard chalets – often the most affordable options for aging families and residents. This bill would prevent HOA from blocking new houses in communities that already have schools, parks and transit nearby.
These bills support the priorities of progressive legislators: to increase access, to reduce the power of exclusion and rebalancing of those who benefit from rarity. They complete the protections of tenants and social housing by solving the basic problem – chronic subcontrust.
In addition to facilitating the construction of houses, local governments have human alternatives to criminalization. Fremont is expected to extend its 45 bed navigation center and establish land dedicated to the city for people living in vehicles excluded from the current security parking program. More importantly, Fremont must completely repeal his camping ban. The solution lies in the fight against our housing shortage, not punishment.
Nevertheless, we must speed up the construction of houses in our region. The homeless results from our housing shortage and our policies that ignore solutions. If we want stable communities where people from all income can live and work, we must end instinctive reactions to visible homeless and start building houses and services that will really solve the crisis.
David Bonaccorsi is a former member of the Fremont Council and part of the Leadership Fremont team for all.
California Daily Newspapers
