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Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva (D – Fullerton) posted a photo on Twitter Tuesday of a couple of homeless tents on a city sidewalk, and asks why. “Can we explain this? Who is responsible? Solutions please,” she Tweeted.
The responses were epic, predictable, snarky, defensive, and there were the trolls. But several questioned how the Assemblywoman could be so tone deaf to what’s been going on all around her, in Sacramento and in her home district.
This guy let her have it: “Isn’t it literally your job to understand the situation and do your best to solve it?”
A political consultant replied: “Democrats have been in the supermajority in the CA legislature for a decade, with a Dem Gov… and they run almost every major city. It’s pretty lame for you to ask who is responsible.”
Another reply said: “Because of Democrat regulations and policies. Move to any other state and it wouldn’t cost as much to build. Democrats didn’t say no to the first tent is the problem. Now it’s in every neighborhood and they’re not all nice people.”
And another… “Every single housing law passed in CA for a generation made housing more expensive; restrictive zoning, CEQA, Title 24, ADA, labor requirements, waste water management, VMT, and many others…all seemingly righteous, but all straws on the camel’s back. Well, the camel fell over.”
One reply offered the heart of the government-created issue: “This photo is explained by the Martin v. Boise decision and Prop 47. Both must be corrected to seriously address homelessness.”
This response was mind-blowing: “Need a living wage for our people and to get investors out of housing.”
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About forty years ago at a Ventura Chamber of Commerce board of directors meeting Paul Owens made the comment that 45% of the cost of a new home in Ventura was taxes and fees. A very liberal female member whose name I cannot recall at this time piped up and said, “Oh no that’s not right. It’s only 29%. I sat mesmerized at they went back and forth. Figuring that the real figure was somewhere between 29% and 45%, I arbitrarily picked 30% simply because it was easier to use for mental figuring.
The median price of a new home in Ventura at that time was $150,000, so you can figure how long ago that was. Using 30% that comes to $45,000. That figure doesn’t include any nails or lumber or the cost of the land or any of the costs in the actual construction. It is fees and taxes. and there wasn’t any argument that it was at least 29%. That was the stated low figure.
My first 4-bedroom, 2-bath house in California was less than $7,000 with zero down due to a GI loan. My principal, interest, and tax and insurance impound account made my total 30 year loan payment $63 and change a month. It didn’t have forced air heating. It had two wall heaters but it had two bathrooms with tub and shower in each. There was no built in dishwasher. We washed dishes by hand. It was in Highland, CA just outside San Bernardino. It was the summer of 1963.
Folgers Coffee on sale was 19¢ a pound. Three pounds of Folgers on sale was 39¢ for a real 3-pound can.
Social security deduction was, I think, 2.75%.
So about 30-40 years ago somewhere between 29 to 45 percent of the cost of a new home was taxes and fees. Wonder what the percentage is today? Any wonder why housing costs are so high? Then there are the building code requirements. We didn’t have sidewalks and curbs in that tract. I don’t remember, but I don’t think we had street lighting either. The garage was a single car detached garage with a corrugated aluminum garage door. It was totally uninsulated and I believe we could have boiled water in the summertime in late afternoon in the garage. But we had a big lot for the kids to play in and our very own first house. Nobody upstairs; No HOA; no special assessments.
My monthly salary was $650 a month, so the total cost of my home was just about 10% of my gross income. And with two kids I took home a bigger percentage of my gross than I would with an adjusted similar salary today. I think the total cost of each of the birth of the two children was less than $250 each. That was the doctor’s fee and the hospital costs. I paid the whole thing myself because medical insurance mostly was limited to government jobs where the salaries were lower but the benefits were higher as opposed to today where both the salaries and benefits are much higher than the similar non-governmental jobs. And that, ladies and gentlemen is another reason why the taxes and fees on the construction of a new home is so much higher.