I recently moved to California and was born after all this started but I'm pretty interested in the early days. Was it honestly believed that this was the best

I recently moved to California and was born after all this started but I'm pretty interested in the early days. Was it honestly believed that this was the best way as a way for grandma to keep her house in days of high inflation and people didn't realize the potential consequences or was it simply sold to the masses under this guise but really it was to benefit existing landowners, creating basically a landowning aristocracy. There just seem to be so many better ways for fixed income people to keep their homes, like a tax rebate for seniors below a certain income... Although I disagree it is strictly necessary for grandma to keep her home, retires who can't afford their taxes could reasonably be expected to downsize once kids leave home or even god forbid cohabitate with their children as is very common in the rest of the world.