New multibillion-dollar affordable housing commitments from leading tech firms may build out thousands of units, but that's nothing next to California's gargantuan housing shortage.
"The cost of housing has caused people to flee one of the hottest job markets in the nation, in one of the most beautiful places on earth," writes Conor Dougherty of the Golden State's housing crisis.
This year, Google, Apple, and Facebook have all thrown in billions of investment dollars to address the shortage. Though laudable, those efforts alone probably won't make much of a difference. One reason is the absurdly high cost of subsidized housing. A single unit in California averages around $450,000, and that figure balloons even higher in the big metros, Dougherty reports.
"Given those figures, the $4.5 billion that Google, Apple and Facebook have earmarked would create about 10,000 housing units." But against the state's housing deficit of roughly 3.5 million units, that's a pittance.
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