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There is a growing consensus that solving the crisis will require a comprehensive strategy that includes: the PRODUCTION of new housing, the PRESERVATION of units that are affordable to lower-income families, and tenant PROTECTIONS to help stem the tide of evictions and displacement, and efforts to redress long standing racial inequities in the housing market. In recent years new political coalitions have formed which combine the interests of builders, renters, environmentalists, labor unions, community groups, and other stakeholders across the state to advocate for more housing, and there has been a renewed commitment to housing policies and funding at both the state and federal level. Progress may be slow, but it is apparent, and there is potential for it to accelerate in the coming years.

As a state, we face a number of difficult yet important questions: Will we take actions of sufficient scope and scale to meet the challenge before us? Can we chart a course to improved affordability, greater household stability, increased social equity, and reduced homelessness—or will our housing trends continue moving in the wrong direction? What does the future of housing in California look like? And how will we get there?

This report uses a scenario planning research method to lay out four possible “quadrants” for the future of housing in California, based on axes of production and equity: Accelerating Frontierism (housing for private gain and high production of housing), Housing for All (housing for social equity and high production of housing), New Feudalisms (housing for private gain and low production of housing), California Contradictions (housing for social equity and low production of housing).