By admin 
Nothing stabilizes a family or a local economy like homeownership. It remains the most reliable way families build wealth — not through speculation, but through the steady act of paying down a mortgage.
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A home provides collateral for small business loans, equity for education and an asset to pass down so the next generation starts further ahead. Yet, for many California families, this truth is becoming an impossible dream.
New UnidosUS polling reveals the depth of this crisis for California’s Latino voters. Only 11% say they live comfortably, while over a third meet expenses and 21% struggle to do so. Furthermore, 40% cite a lack of affordable homes as a primary obstacle, with others pointing to high interest rates and insufficient capital for down payments and closing costs.
Housing policy is economic policy. Economic policy that leaves Latino families behind fails California’s future. As the state’s largest ethnic group and a vital share of its workforce and electorate, Latinos are essential to our collective success. A California that fails to make homeownership reachable for these families is failing to invest in its own economic stability.
For Latino families, the ladder has been especially difficult to climb. Decades of exclusionary lending and a market where home costs dwarf typical incomes have locked too many out. When a family cannot buy, they miss out on more than a place to live; they lose the primary vehicle for financial security.
This shows up when young couples in the Central Valley realize they may rent for life, or when grandparents lack the equity to help the next generation.
California has the tools to change this. The Middle Class Housing Act allows housing to be built on qualifying land already zoned for office, retail or parking, opening the door to new homes on underused commercial corridors that are often near jobs, roads and services.
California cannot solve its housing shortage only by expanding outward; it also has to use land where infrastructure already exists.
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The Starter Home Revitalization Act creates a faster approval path for small homeownership projects — generally 10 homes or fewer on qualifying urban lots — so communities can add townhomes, small-lot homes and other entry-level options first-time buyers are more likely to reach. These are the missing middle homes California needs: smaller than many single-family homes, more attainable than much of today’s market and better suited for families moving from renting to ownership.
California also needs to make affordable housing finance work better. That means coordinating tax-exempt bonds, tax credits, and state loan programs so that projects with local approval do not sit idle while developers wait for separate funding decisions. When these tools work together, they can move projects from paper to construction faster, attract private investment, and help community-based developers build in rural towns, farmworker communities, and overlooked neighborhoods.
Equitable access to capital should be a standard — not an afterthought. When done right, housing investment also puts skilled workers to work building the homes our families need.
None of these tools work if we build too slowly. Our housing shortfall took decades to create, and we won’t build our way out in one session. That’s why we need urgency. Every year of underachievement is another year a generation of young families stays locked out of the market their labor helped build.
The choice for leaders is clear: keep permitting reform moving, keep finance tools funded, and grow homebuyer programs. Families are not asking for a handout; they want a fair shot at the American middle class. California can still build that ladder, but only if we treat housing as the urgent economic priority it is.
Sen. Anna Caballero is a Democrat representing California’s 14th District. Esmeralda Lopez is California Policy Director at UnidosUS.
This story was originally published August 28, 2026 at 5:00 AM with the headline “California must include Latino families in homeownership | Opinion.”
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