Americans are exhausted by the rising cost of living. But nowhere is the crisis hitting harder than in California, a state once synonymous with opportunity and upward mobility. Today, it has become a cautionary tale: a place where working people with good jobs still can’t afford a modest home, where insurance rates rival car payments, and where government has turned the basic act of building shelter into a regulatory marathon.
If we are serious about an America First solution- one that prioritizes working families, not bureaucracies – California’s housing system is the place to start. The state’s housing crisis is manufactured. It is the direct result of policy choices – many well-intentioned, most counterproductive – that have turned homeownership from an achievable goal into a luxury.
Consider one simple comparison. In many suburban communities, a home in California costs $200,000 more than an identical home in Nevada. Same footprint, floorplan, and building materials. The only meaningful difference is the weight of California’s permitting, environmental, tax, and regulatory structure. Families are not paying for better homes; they are paying for government.
Most Americans assume that housing costs are driven by labor, materials, or interest rates. But in California, hefty permitting and approval process fees quietly add six-figure sums to the cost of a single home. Builders often wait 18 to 24 months or longer just to secure basic permits, and every delay adds costs that get baked into the sale price.
Nothing about this improves safety, durability, design, or produces green homes. It simply makes housing more expensive, especially for first-time buyers and working families.
Policy solutions based on national interest must prioritize predictable, streamlined, time-limited permitting. California can preserve reasonable standards without treating every home as a multi-year infrastructure project.
California’s Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is the single biggest reason the state builds slower and pays more for housing than the rest of the country. CEQA was created to protect natural resources but today is used to stall nearly everything.
The law allows virtually anyone to file a lawsuit claiming potential environmental harm, and has become a tool for unions seeking leverage, competitors seeking advantage, and neighborhood groups seeking status quo. It is anti-housing by design and by effect.
Environmental protection matters. But California’s current system, where one anonymous complaint can halt a project supported by thousands, is neither fair nor sustainable. An America First framework demands CEQA reform: limiting abuse, requiring objections early, restricting lawsuits that have nothing to do with true environmental risk, and exempting housing built within existing communities.
California’s tax environment makes things even harder. Property taxes are structured in a way that keeps rates low for long-term owners but puts new buyers at a steep disadvantage. Combined with high income taxes, sales taxes, and a vast range of building-related fees, California punishes people trying to enter the housing market.
The result is a growing generational divide: young buyers shoulder costs that earlier generations never faced.
Insurance is another new deal breaker no one saw coming. For decades, homebuyers relied on predictable PITI—principal, interest, taxes, and insurance – during prequalification and underwriting. Today, insurance has become a wild card that is blowing up escrows across the state.
Insurance quotes that used to be $100 a month are now coming in at $1,000 or more, and families who thought they qualified for a mortgage suddenly find the home unaffordable—not because of the house, but because insurers are pulling out of California or limiting policies due to wildfire risk and state rules that prevent risk-based pricing.
Without insurance, buyers can’t close, lenders can’t lend, and entire neighborhoods become functionally uninsurable. An America First housing solution recognizes that insurance regulation must change – allowing modern risk assessment, encouraging fire-resilient building, and speeding up forest and vegetation management to reduce losses.
An America First affordability agenda is simple at its core: put working families ahead of bureaucracy, litigation, and political theater. Streamline permits. Reform CEQA. Fix insurance markets. Reduce the tax burden on new buyers. Make government smaller, faster, and less antagonistic to people who want to build a life.
California once embodied the American Dream. It can again, but only if policymakers decide that housing should serve families, not the system that stands in their way.
Mike Garcia is a first-generation American, decorated Navy combat veteran, and former Congressman who represented California’s 27th District. A former F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot and defense industry executive, he now serves as Chair of AFPI’s California Chapter.