There aren't any magic solutions, but I think there are a lot of ideas that could incentivize affordable housing for people who actually live here. A number of

There aren't any magic solutions, but I think there are a lot of ideas that could incentivize affordable housing for people who actually live here. A number of my neighbors are Prop 13 'princelings'. Their parents snapped up a bunch of housing, have next to 0 annual cost, and extract fantastic wealth renting them out, all while receiving a huge tax subsidy. This position passes to the next generation, who essentially become absentee landlords and are heavily incentivized to prevent more housing. A number of places in Santa Cruz and the rest of the county are completely underutilized because these families prefer to do absolutely nothing and collect insane rents on dilapidated properties to the detriment of everybody else who lives here.