California has become the national poster child for high housing costs and homelessness. Although no single lawmaker or regulator is to blame for California’s housing crisis, a complex array of regulatory obstacles is enacted by politicians at various levels of government. Housing is a fundamental part of life and creates the link between consumers and housing entrepreneurs has been severed by government policies, moreover, the link must be reestablished to restore civil society for all Californians. Nowadays the need for fast and affordable housing construction is especially critical because of California’s horrific wildfires of 2017 and 2018 that destroyed tens of thousands of homes and businesses.  As said to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, there were 151,278 people homeless in California as of January 2019 or about 27 percent of the nation’s homeless population. California legislators must ease state regulations that impose huge costs on housing construction, stop or delay projects, and disincentivize more rental properties. Local officials need to liberalize zoning and other building regulations, especially in high-demand areas, that prevent much-needed construction of new housing or that prevent the conversion of old buildings into residential housing. Entrepreneurs should be encouraged to enter housing markets across the state to provide creative and low-cost solutions to meet consumer demands for housing, thereby eliminating the government-created shortage.    

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