One of the studies — by author David Shulman, a senior economist with the UCLA Anderson Forecast project — notes that California is at the start of a relative boom in construction of housing units:

After a long, hard slog, housing starts (both single- and multi-family) are poised to approach the long-term average (1959-2014) of just under 1.5 million units in 2016. Specifically we are forecasting housing starts of 1.14 million units this year and 1.42 million units and 1.44 million units in 2016 and 2017, respectively. This level of activity is well above 1.00 million units recorded in 2014 and the 2009 low of 0.55 million units.

This would seem to be unalloyed good news. Critics of the standard local government affordable-housing practice of building a relative handful of units say that such policies can never produce enough housing stock to make rents and sale prices go down. So a sharp increase in building would seem to move us toward a place where supply and demand affects costs.

More housing stock — but also much more demand

But another UCLA study says that’s a fantasy, as the rebounding California economy pushes more potential buyers into the market. This is from a City News Service story about UCLA’s research in the Los Angeles Daily News:

Housing in California — already considered unaffordable to many — will become even less affordable over the next two years, with construction unable to keep up with demand, according to a UCLA economic forecast released Monday.

 

UCLA Anderson Forecast Senior Economist Jerry Nickelsburg wrote in his forecast that government agencies need to reconsider their policies surrounding affordable housing if they hope to make a dent in the problem.

 

“The economics are clear,” he wrote. “When affordable housing is provided, say by requiring developers to have a fixed percentage of their new units ‘affordable,’ then the demand for that housing will be in excess of the supply.” …

 

Nickelsburg said the typical response of “just build more housing” is unrealistic since such a move would require major changes in zoning codes, environmental requirements and building regulations.

This has been the standard argument from many analysts. But Nickelsburg suggests a new approach that seems certain to be controversial, per the Daily News:

Nickelsburg added that “the policy itself recognizes that building constraints — natural or regulatory — will not permit a sufficient number of new homes to be built to satisfy the demand at affordable levels.

 

“This being the case, affordable housing policy needs to be explicit about who the housing is for,” he wrote. “For example, one might advocate affordable housing so that teachers in public schools can purchase housing that would otherwise be difficult for them to acquire.”

But teachers are not the face of poverty in California — it’s Latinos and African Americans without much education. Nearly 50 percent of these two groups are either in poverty or near poverty, according to a study by the United Way.

As of last year, the average pay of a full-teacher in California was more than $84,000, per data from Transparent California.

Now a new UCLA study finds that of the 4 million adults in California who are 65 or older, 1.11 million struggle to make ends meet — an effective poverty rate of 28 percent. That’s more than triple the number of California elderly who were considered impoverished under standard federal measures. This is from the KPCC/PBS report:

More than 770,000 seniors in California aren’t making enough to get by but aren’t considered poor by the federal government, according to a UCLA health policy study that is challenging the definition of poverty. …

 

According to the study, about 340,000 Californians 65 years or older are considered poor based on the Federal Poverty Level, which makes them eligible for public assistance programs.

 

But in an analysis of 2009-2011 U.S. Census data, the researchers concluded that about 772,000 more seniors in the state could use the help but aren’t considered poor enough. She calls this group the “hidden poor.”

 

“They don’t have enough income to meet a minimally decent standard of living,” said study lead author Imelda Padilla-Frausto, a graduate student researcher at the Center for Health Policy Research.

‘Hidden poor’ in trailer parks fight for rent control

As with the jump in overall poverty rates in the 2012 alternative Census Bureau statistical review, elderly poverty rates are much higher than previously thought because of the high cost of living. UCLA explains its approach in its study:

Economic security requires that older adults have sufficient income to pay for basic housing, food, transportation, health care, and other necessary expenses. The Elder Index is an evidence-based approach that identifies the actual costs of those basic needs at the county level for renters, homeowners with a mortgage, and homeowners without a mortgage. …

 

Of the 4 million older adults age 65 and over in California in 2011, one out of three (38.4 percent) was part of an older couple living alone, one out of four (27 percent) was a single elder living alone, one out of 20 (5.5 percent) was part of an older couple housing adult children, one out of 30 (3.6 percent) was a single elder housing adult children, and less than 1 percent were grandparents raising grandchildren without the parents present.

A primary cause of economic insecurity among the elderly is their reliance on fixed incomes that can’t handle sudden increases in housing costs. This explains why trailer park communities with rent controls — and many renters among the “hidden poor” — are often involved in intense political fights in local governments.

California has nearly 5,000 trailer parks with nearly 1 million residents, according to a 2011 TIME report about trailer park owners’ war on what cities call “rent stabilization agreements.”

According to a website that offers resources to trailer-park residents in disputes with their landlords, 97 local governments around California put limits on how much rates can go up each year, from Alameda County to Yucaipa.

Elderly trailer-park voters are often eagerly courted by local politicians. They vote at higher rates than younger residents and form coalitions with other groups that have lost favor with city hall. In Oceanside, for example, trailer park residents and public safety unions have long fought with business interests and conservative Republicans for control of the City Council.