CA governor candidate Tom Steyer is making a big housing promise. Is it doable?
Tom Steyer knows he’s taking a risk by declaring the state will build one million homes over four years if he is elected governor. But the Democratic gubernatorial candidate said that’s the point.
“Of course, any time you hold yourself to a standard, it’s scary because you have a standard to meet,” he said Thursday, after a candidate forum in downtown Sacramento. “And it means that you can not make it. But people who don’t put a number on it, don’t make it.”
The wealthy environmentalist and businessman is one of the leading competitors in a crowded field of 10 Republicans and Democrats, and he has campaigned hard on making California a more affordable place to live. The high cost of housing in the state may be his greatest challenge in doing so. But is Steyer’s plan even doable?
In a plan released Thursday, he said he will reach the goal by building housing “cheaper, faster, and better,” through enforcing laws, cutting fees charged on developments and investing in houses that are built in factories and then assembled on site. His desire to build more homes is not unique among the candidates, but few have set an exact mark they want to reach.
“People are really suffering, and it’s unacceptable, honestly,” he said after the forum. “And the government has not been able to get this done.”
Many are eager to help Steyer achieve his goal.
Chione Flegal, the executive director of the statewide advocacy organization Housing California, said Steyer’s goal “is something we’d love to see, and it would require just a radical acceleration of the investments we’re putting into” home construction.
Flegal said the group, which hosted the forum at its annual conference, has been pushing California leaders for years to more quickly build a million new homes that are affordable for people to live in.
“To get that done, we’ve estimated that it will take 10 years, spending about $25 billion a year to meet both the housing and related service needs,” she said.
Another hard political truth is that even if a governor is enthusiastic about building new homes, there is only so much they can do from their perch. Gov. Gavin Newsom, before he was elected to his first term, set a goal of building 3.5 million homes by 2025.
In the years since he took the job, Newsom has signed an array of bills from the Legislature meant to speed up permit and environmental reviews, penalize local governments that deny housing projects and encourage more affordable places for people to live.
Close observers see Newsom as a real housing champion. Even so, his efforts did not lead to an explosion of home construction at a scale big enough to meet his goal.
The state gained roughly 125,230 homes in 2024, the most recent data available, according to the Department of Finance. The year before, a net total of almost 116,000 homes were added in the state.
And not all of those are considered affordable houses.
One of Newsom’s competitors in that 2018 race was Antonio Villaraigosa, a Democrat and former mayor of Los Angeles, who is now running to replace him.
Villaraigosa has not set a specific target he wants to see built if he is elected. That, he said, is intentional.
“I like underpromising and overdelivering,” he said. “Yes, we should have a goal, but more importantly, we should put a plan together to implement that goal.”
Betty Yee, the former state controller, has also shied away from setting a number.
“It’s a decision I’ve made because I think there are lots of reasons why we’re not seeing production, and it’s not necessarily anybody’s fault and I want to be more granular about understanding that,” Yee said.
Both Villaraigosa and Yee took part in the forum. So did Democrat Tony Thurmond, the state superintendent. Like Steyer, Thurmond is also pitching a housing number on the campaign trail. He wants to build more than two million homes on surplus land in the state owned by school districts.
“I like having something that’s measurable and specific,” Thurmond said. “I feel like voters need more than platitudes.”
Steyer touts himself as more than just talk. He points to a community bank he co-founded with his wife, which reports financing over 17,000 homes since 2007 as showing he has what it takes to meet his goal.
“Does it put a real match under our derrières to get moving?,” he said of the target. “Heck yes. Is that the point? I think also, heck yes. We got to get our ass going. And so sitting here and saying, ‘We’re going to try really hard,’ just doesn’t cut it.”
This story was originally published March 19, 2026 at 3:29 PM.
