The number of unhoused California residents is at a record high, and the number of renters who spend an unaffordable share of their income on housing has soared.
"It's at crisis level," said Cal Lutheran economics professor Jamshid Damooei. "We are in a situation that people actually leave California to go to other places."
Damooei, Executive Director of The Center for Economics of Social Issues, is presenting a new report on the housing crisis in our area at a one-day conference on Thursday.
Women- and minority-led households are suffering the most, said Damooei. To effect change at the local and state levels, he said, there needs to be thought-provoking conversations about reliable solutions.
"In the short term, you ease off the pressure," said Damooei. "In the long term, we'll solve it. Easing off the pressures is not the solution. The solution means that we have to think about affordability, and this is a very important part of this conference."
Other panelists include Linda Braunschweiger, CEO, Housing Trust Fund Ventura County and Housing Land Trust Ventura County; Rudy Espinoza, CEO, Inclusive Action for the City, Los Angeles County; Tracy McAulay, housing solutions director, County of Ventura; and Lucas Zucker, co-executive director at CAUSE, Ventura County.
The California Lutheran University School of Management’s Center for Economics of Social Issues (CESI) Conference: “California’s Housing Crisis: Roots of the Problem and What Lies Ahead” is from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., on Thursday, February. 19 at Lundring Events Center, California Lutheran University, 60 W. Olsen Road, Thousand Oaks
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