SECTION 1.
The Legislature finds and declares the following:(a) California has a severe housing crisis.
(b) In the bay area and southern California, the housing crisis has exacerbated historical residential racial segregation, causing the state’s wealthiest 10 counties to be more racially segregated than they were before the enactment of federal and state civil rights and fair housing laws beginning in 1964.
(c) Victims of the housing crisis are disproportionately members of Black, Latino, Native American, and some Asian American communities, as well as millennials and younger residents of all races.
(d) California has the lowest homeownership rates for Black (34 percent), Latino (42 percent), and Asian and Pacific Islander (58 percent) residents compared to White (63 percent) residents, and the highest housing-induced poverty rate (19 percent) and homelessness population and rate, of any state in the nation.
(e) The housing cost burden, more than 30 percent of income, was highest among Blacks (64 percent) and Latinos (60 percent) compared to Whites (51 percent), according to the National Equity Atlas.
(f) Nationally, the 2016 median net wealth for Whites was 10.2 times greater than Blacks and 7.4 times greater than Latinos, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
(g) Homeownership is the gateway to economic security and intergenerational wealth, an economic equity issue vociferously articulated in 2020.
(h) To address California’s housing crisis, and housing regulatory and policy inequities, it is the intent of the Legislature to establish the Legislative Task Force on the California Master Plan on Homeownership, as provided. It is further the intent of the Legislature to require this task force to evaluate policy and regulatory impediments to increasing the rate of homeownership for Californians and, no later than October 31, 2022, to develop a final report that includes specific information and recommendations and submit that report to the Legislature.