More than half of California voters say the state’s housing affordability crisis is so bad they have considered moving, according to a new statewide poll by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies. Fully 56% of voters polled are considering such a move, with 25% saying that if they did move, it would be out of California.
About half of the state's registered voters (48%) say housing affordability is an "extremely serious" problem where they live. Residents of the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area were the most likely to say that, the poll found, with 65% feeling that way. Some 27% said the housing affordability problem was "somewhat serious."
Things are not quite as bad in other parts of the state, but bad enough, the respondents said. In non-Bay northern California, including Sacramento, 43% of those polled said housing costs are "extremely serious," and 31% said they were "somewhat serious."
People may or may not actually move because of these sentiments — renters are more likely to do so than owners — but worries about housing affordability seem likely to affect voting patterns. Some 60% of the electorate supports rent control, and 51% said they are inclined to support the $4B bond on the 2018 ballot that would fund further affordable housing construction statewide.
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