When Gavin Newsom campaigned for governor in 2018, he made a sweeping pledge to confront California’s crippling housing shortage. Nearly seven years later, that promise remains largely unfulfilled, and the state’s affordability crisis is only worsening. Despite repeated vows to boost housing production, the figures tell a very different story.
Newsom famously committed to building 3.5 million new housing units by 2025, a number his administration quietly retreated from when it became clear the goal was nowhere within reach. By 2022 he had already rebranded the original promise as a “stretch goal,” lowering his target to 2.5 million units by 2030. Yet even with the revised figure, California continues to lag far behind. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, the state added just 737,295 new privately owned housing units during the timeline tied to Newsom’s 3.5 million-unit aspiration—barely a fifth of what he pledged.
Recent production rates show little sign of improvement. In the first eight months of 2025, California built nearly 16,000 fewer homes than in the same period in 2022. That year marked Newsom’s best performance, with 120,780 units permitted. To hit the reduced 2.5 million-unit goal, the state would need to more than double its current output, reaching roughly 310,000 units per year—an ambitious requirement that current trends do not support.
Meanwhile, Californians are leaving the state at the highest negative net migration rate across all generations, according to a new retirement study. Critics point to the state’s arduous permitting and regulatory maze as a central culprit. Republican State Sen. Tony Strickland, who has served under five governors, argues that California’s bureaucratic process adds years and massive costs to construction. He noted that developers in Huntington Beach spent a full decade navigating the California Coastal Commission and other agencies to get approval for a residential and commercial project.
Newsom has signed two major housing bills this year—AB 130, which trims back California Environmental Quality Act hurdles, and SB 79, which increases high-density development near public transit. But even these measures have drawn criticism. AB 130 contains a vehicle miles traveled tax on developers building in less transit-accessible areas. There are no protections preventing the cost from being passed directly to renters and homebuyers. The Los Angeles Business Federation warned the tax could add $197,000 to the cost of a new home and raise rents by $1,350 a month, calling it a burden low-income communities cannot absorb.
Newsom still has one year left in his term. His administration insists progress is underway, pointing to the creation of the Housing and Homelessness Accountability Unit in 2021, which it says has “unlocked” over 7,500 units in the past two years. Yet for families struggling to stay housed, the governor’s record—not his rhetoric—remains the measure that matters.
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