This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, October 21st, 2022. I'm Caleb Brown.

It's been a year since the Cato Institute launched its project on poverty and inequality in California.

So what's changed in the Golden State?

Cato's Mike Tanner heads the project.

We discussed how California has and hasn't changed course on housing,

homelessness, and he also talks about what lawmakers

should focus on in the years to come.

One year ago today, the Cato Institute's Project on Poverty and Inequality in California released its final report at a conference in Sacramento, including 24 specific

recommendations for ways that California could better address

inequality and poverty in the Golden State.

During that year, we've seen some progress, some steps forward in some areas.

We've also seen some substantial missteps in other areas.

So we thought it was a good time to look back

and see exactly what California has and has not accomplished.

Now, I would love to give you personally all the credit for the positive steps that California has taken,

but of course high housing costs in California had at least a little something to do with

reforms that have been made. So what has California done with regard to housing that was positive?

California has actually passed several dozen pro housing pieces of legislation in the last year. There seems to be some real movement on this.

It started with the fact that shortly after we issued our report, Governor Newsom

signed into law legislation which effectively legalized duplexes throughout the state and in fact

enabled people to subdivide lots to have up to four houses on what was previously

a single family lot. There's still a lot of pushback and resistance from localities, but that's a step in the right direction.

...