California Exodus? Poll Finds Voters Consider Moving Due To Housing Costs
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.
