California’s housing crisis is huge and multidimensional, from a desperate lack of affordable rentals for low- and moderate-income families to an equally severe lack of affordable homeownership opportunities for all but high-income Californians. A wide variety of organizations exist to address various aspects of this crisis.

As an organization whose mission is to close the racial wealth gap in California and the United States, California Community Builders has chosen to focus on housing and homeownership. This is not because we regard other aspects of housing, like the creation of subsidized, affordable rentals, as unimportant — we strongly support this work and the many excellent organizations addressing it — but because we saw a need for increased advocacy around affordable homeownership. We do not believe that homeownership on its own will close the racial wealth gap, nor do we believe that it is the right financial decision for every family in every case. But we are are certain that every BIPOC family that desires to own a home should be given an equitable opportunity to do so because this is how most working Americans build intergenerational wealth for themselves and their families. 

This report came about because we realized we needed to better understand the population whose needs we seek to address, the majority of whom are broadly (and perhaps confusingly) categorized as “middle-income.” Happily, California is starting to pay more and more attention to middle-income housing challenges, especially for lower-middle-income families. Across the state, we’re seeing conversations, reports, legislative pushes and news articles bringing attention to housing issues of moderate- or middle-income Californians.

Blog Series

See below for a series of blog posts examining underlying themes from the Middle Income Report

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