Your guide to the California governor candidates’ views on housing and homelessness

The high cost of housing in California and the related homelessness crisis are some of the most pressing issues facing the state.

As such, the candidates for governor have rolled out a variety of proposals, which seek to build more housing, provide more affordability for Californians and get people off the streets.

Some plans also call for new ways to address mental health and drug addiction problems, two issues that also contribute to the state’s homelessness crisis.

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May 1, 2026

The gubernatorial primary is a crowded one, with the main candidates being two Republicans and six Democrats. The top two, regardless of party affiliation, advance to November’s general election.

The Republicans are Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and conservative commentator Steve Hilton.

The Democrats are former California Atty. Gen and Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, San José Mayor Matt Mahan, former Congresswoman Katie Porter, billionaire hedge fund founder and environmental activist Tom Steyer, state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Here are the candidates’ views on housing and homelessness:

Xavier Becerra, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, at the California Governor Candidate Forum.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Like other candidates, Becerra says California needs to build more homes to make the state more affordable. It’s a stance economists generally agree with, pointing to a mismatch between supply and demand as a main driver of the housing crisis.

On his campaign website, Becerra says he’ll boost construction by cutting “unnecessary red tape” and “speeding up approvals for projects that meet affordability and environmental standards.”

Becerra proposes to require cities and counties to approve or deny building permits within 90 days, loosening certain regulations for infill projects and reforming construction defect laws to encourage more construction of entry-level condos.

Becerra also wants to strengthen tenant eviction protections and limit investor purchases of homes to make sure “growth doesn’t push people out.”

On homelessness, Becerra wants to establish a $150-million annual homelessness prevention fund that would help people in high-risk neighborhoods pay rent and fight eviction or foreclosure.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a GOP candidate for governor, tours Skid Row.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Bianco’s campaign vows to remove “government-created barriers” it says have made housing unaffordable and thus contributed to the homelessness crisis and “taken away the economic freedom of Californians.”

Bianco wants to speed approval of housing projects, end “overregulation of our building industry” and eliminate the California Environmental Protection Act, which has been praised for preserving the environment but criticized for stymieing needed housing development, at times for questionable environmental reasons.

Bianco vowed to “oppose any effort to weaken Prop. 13,” which holds property taxes low for longtime property owners, including those of commercial buildings in addition to homes.

On homelessness, Bianco wants cities to clear encampments using power they gained from a 2024 Supreme Court decision, direct more resources toward mental health clinicians and substance abuse treatment and force people to accept drug treatment “when necessary.”

Conservative commentator and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Hilton announces his campaign for California governor at the Pier Plaza in Huntington Beach.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Like other candidates, Hilton says California must build more to address its affordability crisis.

But unlike others, he proposes that government do more to encourage the construction of new suburbs and says policymakers have focused too much on supporting new, infill housing in existing cities.

Hilton says building outward would give families more options for the single-family homes they crave and relieve price pressure on cities.

Among his proposals is to reform the California Environmental Quality Act to enable only government prosecutors to sue, thus blocking the ability of private individuals and organizations to stop or delay new housing development.

He wants to make it easier to fund infrastructure to enable new cities to be built, reduce building fees and speed up the construction approval process. Hilton has argued rent control reduces the incentive for builders to build and says “restructuring or eliminating” it would improve affordability.

When it comes to policies to combat the homelessness crisis, Hilton wants to build far more relatively low-cost group shelters instead of focusing on permanent housing units that are often extremely expensive to create.

He has called for passing and enforcing anticamping laws and making it easier to fund large mental health institutions and commit people to them against their will if they have severe issues.

San José Mayor Matt Mahan speaks during a California governor candidate forum at Skirball Cultural Center.

(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)

Mahan says the high cost of housing is pushing Californians out of the state and is the main driver of homelessness.

To address these issues, Mahan wants to lower development fees for infill housing and stop cities from passing “exorbitant sales or transfer taxes on new infill housing” like Los Angeles’ Measure ULA, which a UCLA-Rand Corp. study found reduced apartment construction in the city.

Mahan wants to mandate that cities process permits in less than 30 days and if they fail, allow developers to use “properly qualified and licensed third-party planners and building inspectors to review permits instead.”

Another proposal is to make “building California homes in California factories a centerpiece of the state’s industrial strategy.” Building this way can be cheaper than building on site, and Mahan would support the creation of modular housing factories by providing incentives for their construction.

Mahan also wants to reform a law, Senate Bill 800, which he says makes it too risky for developers to build condominiums that serve as entry into home ownership, and provide more down payment assistance.

When it comes to homelessness, Mahan wants to get people inside quickly by providing more interim beds that can be built cheaper and quicker than constructing permanent housing, and proposes to make tweaks to state housing law to push cities to build such interim shelters.

He also says fines or jail time for sleeping on the streets is cruel if there’s no offer of shelter, but supports such penalties for people who repeatably decline available housing.

Mahan also wants to make the state’s Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention grant permanent and fund it at $1 billion a year.

Former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter addresses the crowd at the California Democratic Party State Convention in San Francisco.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Porter wants to encourage the construction of more “housing of all types” to improve affordability.

On her website, Porter promises to “push the federal government to invest in California’s housing challenges” and says her administration would “greenlight innovative building strategies, shred unnecessary red tape, and create incentives to build the housing that our economy and communities need.”

On homelessness, a campaign spokesman said Porter is “particularly interested in doing more on” interim housing, emergency rental assistance and rapid rehousing.

Tom Steyer speaks during a California governor candidate forum at Skirball Cultural Center.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

Steyer vowed to implement a variety of policies that he says would result in the construction of 1 million new homes over four years.

Steyer would do this in part by reworking the complicated affordable housing finance system to better use public money and attract more private capital, while finding ways to add housing on public lands.

He wants to close a property tax “loophole” in Proposition 13 for industrial and commercial property owners that would raise more money and lessen the need for cities to charge developers fees that drive up the cost of housing.

Steyer pledged to make it harder for large corporations to buy up the state’s housing stock and to encourage cheaper methods of building homes, in part by committing a certain number of state-funded projects to using factory-built housing. Steyer’s campaign says doing so would enable the upstart factory home industry to make capital investments that it can use to expand its presence in the larger, private market.

When it comes to tenants, Steyer wants to expand the state renter’s tax credit and preserve its rent control framework that he says balances the need for more construction and protection of tenants.

On homelessness, Steyer wants to expand interim housing options with services, arguing the state has focused too much on building permanent housing for the homeless that is too costly and takes too long to open.

Tony Thurmond, California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, at the California Governor Candidate Forum.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Thurmond wants to build 2 million new homes for “working Californians,” in large part by encouraging school districts to build on 75,000 acres of surplus land that they own. His proposal says those homes would be open to not only teachers but also nurses, firefighters and families in the district.

Thurmond says he’s exploring bringing back redevelopment agencies in some form to support more construction and wants to increase the number of homeless housing units with mental health and substance abuse services.

Former L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa speaks during a California governor candidate forum at Skirball Cultural Center.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

Villaraigosa says California’s affordability problem “ultimately boils down to supply and demand” and is supportive of recent state laws like Senate Bill 9 and Senate Bill 79 that overrode local zoning restrictions to allow for denser housing.

To encourage even more construction, Villaraigosa calls for reducing development fees and reforming CEQA to speed housing development, particularly for infill housing.

Other proposals include $10 billion in bonds to build mixed-income housing on underutilized public lands, limits on investor purchases of single-family homes and an expansion of down payment and other types of mortgage assistance.

On homelessness, Villaraigosa wants to double the state’s investment in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Homekey program to build an additional 10,000 units of permanent supportive housing over five years. He also wants to invest more in interim housing and expand mandatory treatment programs.