California's affordable housing crisis has reached emergency status. Year after year, many renters pay far too large a share of their incomes for rent, and Californians face some of the nation's least affordable home ownership markets, making it difficult for young families to achieve home ownership.

The California Budget Project, a fiscal and economic policy issues data gathering operation, found that:

l Only 58 percent of Californians are homeowners, (compared to about 68 percent nationwide) the fourth lowest percentage in the nation behind Washington, D.C., New York, and Hawaii.

l In the second quarter of 2003, the median home price was $278,380 in Northern California, the annual income needed to qualify for a loan with a five percent down payment was $61,464, but the area's median annual income was $45,400.

l In 2002, it would have taken a minimum wage earner 88 work hours per week to afford a one-bedroom rental unit in Sacramento. A worker would have to put in a 67-hour work week to afford a comparable rental in the Stockton-Lodi area.

l  Most often priced out of the housing market are young adults and ethnic minorities.

l The highest home ownership rate in California is among senior citizens in California, with 77.5 percent owning their homes, indicating it takes a lifetime to realize the American Dream in the Golden State.

 Two years ago, a similar CBP report concluded there weren't enough work hours in the week for many households to earn enough to pay the rent. Matters have worsened. While incomes haven't kept pace with the rising cost of housing, housing inventories also haven't kept pace with demand, further exacerbating the cost of rent, according to CBP.                                                                                                

 From 1990 to 2002 an average 120,833 building permits were issued each year. During the 1980s the number was more than 203,000 and during the 1970s it was even higher, more than 215,000 per year.   Multifamily housing production has been especially hard hit. During the 1980s, building permits were issued for an average 91,682 multifamily housing permits each year, representing 45 percent of total housing permits. Since 1990 the average has been 31,502 permits, just 26 percent of the total.

According to a study released this month by the California Association of Realtors, only 25 percent of the state's residents can afford the cost of a median priced home. In many California markets, such as Orange County, that average cost is more than a half a million dollars. That means at least a typical down payment of $100,000, well beyond most people's ability to save. And even at today's low interest rates, it means a monthly mortgage payment of around $2,400. In the most expensive areas of California, such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, the average monthly rent for an apartment is under $1,600 --- which makes it easy to understand why the study concluded that California's high home prices are creating a permanent class of renters.