Column: Long Beach needs tens of thousands of new homes to address the housing crisis

Last week I wrote a column about how other cities are building tens of thousands of new homes to address the housing crisis.

Long Beach has been lagging far behind the production in cities like San Diego and Oakland. Just 635 homes were permitted in 2023, according to housingdata.app. That’s not enough.

At that rate, it would take nearly 40 years to build the roughly 25,000 homes we are required to plan for by 2029. 

But if we’re serious about fixing the housing crisis, we should be looking to double that number. To accomplish that our city leaders have to change the rules.