Among the many challenges that Californians face, affordable housing has to be close to the top of the list. In a continuing effort to bring you information and ideas from the best and the brightest, please take a look at a new op-ed article from Mary Kaiser, president of Glendale based, California Community Reinvestment Corporation (CCRC). Entitled “In Love with the Problem,” Mary gives a candid and informed assessment of our continuing inability to solve California’s housing issues.

In Love with the Problem
An industry expert admits there is too much talk and not enough action when it comes to solving California’s housing crisis
by Mary Kaiser

We’re all in love with the problem.

One of the things I do for a living is speak at conferences about the availability or more accurately, the lack of affordable housing. My speeches inevitably dwell on negatives, because when the cost of California housing forces young people, first-time home buyers and moderate income earners out of the markets, bad things happen.

Our roads are clogged with commuters who “drive ‘til they qualify.” That’s bad for our transportation infrastructure and causes employees to live so far from work that they are on the road instead of participating in their home communities or finding time to better contribute to their business communities. In a particularly dire example, firemen, policemen and teachers can’t afford to live in the communities they serve, making it harder to summon them to work when their departments or schools are short-handed.

Our employers can’t recruit employees at numerous salary levels due to the lack of affordable housing. The employee base dries up and employers leave the state to establish their businesses where they have the talent base to run successful companies. Businesses that can’t leave, like hospitals, universities, police and fire departments, accept workers living 100 miles away, subsidize housing closer to the workplace, or overpay relative to competition to attract good employees.

As they grow up, our own children can’t afford to live in the communities where they were raised, so they either never leave home or if they do, they move to Texas, Idaho, the Carolinas—anywhere they can get a good job, buy a home and raise a family

I’ve been in finance and housing for a long time, and I give a good speech. I get the heads nodding, but while I increase the population of the choir, the problem still grows. I finally figured out why. While we are acutely aware of the problem, most of the folks who hear my speeches or come to my house for dinner have dodged the bullet. We are homeowners in California sitting on gold in these thar hills: equity in our homes. We know there is a problem, but it doesn’t affect us, at least not yet. We will talk about the affordable housing crisis endlessly. Like I said, we all seem to be in love with the issue and we can speak eloquently on their ramifications. We acknowledge it and bemoan it, do some armchair quarterbacking, then we leave the conference hall or the dining room. Nothing has changed.

How do we get from being in love with the problem to fixing it? Start by showing everyone, especially those with homes and equity, how it will hit the pocketbook. For example, I don’t want my kids moving out of state, because I want to be one of the grandmas who spoils their grandkids rotten, then sends them home. If they live in Texas, it won’t be so easy to be part of their growing up. I could cash out and move to Texas, but there are Texans living there. I’m a Californian, and a liberal one at that, and I like this place.

So, if I stay, and the state goes to hell in a hand basket, I face a housing problem as the middle class erodes, gaps widen between the haves and the have-nots, and the roads and schools crumble. My property value will eventually drop with the quality of life, and I will have lost out on the gold in them thar hills. With the danger signs all around, coffee tables in nice homes have become contingency planning centers. There you will see the books featuring the rolling hills in North Carolina, the lake towns in Texas, as well as tips on cooking good barbeque and tolerating humidity. Is the “great weather” in California enough to offset the growing list of negatives? I don’t think so.

If I accept that the sky isn’t falling and I stay, what can I do to be part of the solution? And do I like the solution? Do I think it is a good idea that people of all incomes can afford to live in the state, close enough to their jobs to stop spending the best years of their lives on the freeway? Do I think it is a good idea that businesses can find the talent they need to stay and prosper in California? Do I really believe that changes in housing will bring changes in our classrooms? Would we then feel secure in upholding high school exit exams designed to confirm learning standards? Would the dominos keep falling and future generations actually be able to compete in a global marketplace? Maybe then local bonds would be passed by voters reassured that spending money on the school system is a good investment. For the first time in my life, I voted “no” on a local school bond issue because I didn’t think they would spend the money wisely.

So, if we want to stay, and we want our kids and our businesses to stay, what should each of us be doing to fall in love with the solution, not the problem of affordable housing? I’m tired of having lunch with friends, going to conferences, or just talking with co-workers about this problem. So what if we can identify it? So what if we can quote affordability indexes or homeownership rates that are the lowest in the country? So what? I’m starting to sound like my parents who complained about everything when they got older, wishing for the good old days.

Let’s all commit to being part of the solution. Don’t give up on the issue and just hang around quietly. Don’t leave if you don’t want to. Don’t rack up frequent flyer miles visiting your kids and grandkids in those states where the humidity exceeds the temperature. Stay and fight for this great place we currently call home.

Mary Kaiser is president of California Community Reinvestment Corporation (CCRC), a nonprofit lending consortium that has approved more than $736 million in affordable housing loans and made 23,000 housing units available to California residents.