As California’s housing affordability crisis continues, policymakers have pushed to deliver bold solutions. Amid record-high housing costs and plummeting homeownership rates, a new piece of legislation—AB 595—seeks to chart a different course: one that targets the often-overlooked for-sale market and focuses on a group long squeezed out of the American dream—moderate-income, working-class Californians.
Introduced by Assemblymember Juan Carrillo (D-Palmdale) and co-sponsored by California YIMBY, UnidosUS, and California Community Builders, AB 595 would establish a new tax credit program aimed at incentivizing developers to build affordable, for-sale homes for families earning between 80% and 120% of area median income (AMI). In an era where California’s housing policy has leaned heavily on rental subsidies and down payment assistance, AB 595 represents a pivot toward supply-side solutions and equity-centered ownership.
“This is a common-sense solution to a persistent problem,” said Adam Briones, CEO of California Community Builders, in an interview with the Vanguard. “Californians are tired of hearing how much our state government values homeownership while at the same time seeing that dream slip further out of their reach. AB 595 is an opportunity for our state to make affordable homeownership a reality. This is the year we do something about it.”
The scale of the problem is sobering. Only 15% of Californians can afford the median-priced home, according to the California Association of Realtors. The statewide homeownership rate languishes below 55%, second to last among U.S. states. For communities of color, the barriers are even more stark: Black Californians have a homeownership rate 26% lower than their white counterparts; for Latinos, the gap is 19%.
These disparities are not coincidental. They are the legacy of decades of redlining, exclusionary zoning, and disinvestment in communities of color. As Briones explained, California Community Builders was founded to directly confront this challenge by focusing on three interlinked questions: Are enough homes being built? Are communities of color guiding the growth of their neighborhoods? And are those same communities able to access the capital necessary to purchase homes?
“We cover everything from housing supply to who gets to build, to whether communities of color can access mortgages,” Briones said. “It’s all part of a pretty important ecosystem.”
At the heart of AB 595 is the idea that government can and should play a more active role in shaping the supply of affordable ownership housing. Modeled on the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program that has long been used to build affordable rentals, AB 595 would create a similar incentive for for-sale housing.
Briones and his colleagues at California Community Builders initially proposed a study bill in 2023, but the need for action quickly became apparent.
“What we realized last year is that people are tired of talking about the problem—they want to see you do something about it,” Briones said. “So instead of another study, we said let’s be really targeted and actually produce results.”
The legislation directs the California State Treasurer’s Office to design a pilot tax credit program that would lower the cost of constructing homes priced for moderate-income buyers. Crucially, the homes must meet certain income and price restrictions similar to existing first-time homebuyer programs, and developers would be able to syndicate or transfer tax credits to attract broader participation.
The program also aims to cut through bureaucracy by prioritizing efficiency and speed. Briones emphasized this as a core design principle.
“One of the problems we see with many public sector programs is they’re often burdened by requirements that slow down production,” he said. “We want this program to be a shining example of efficient allocation of government resources—something that delivers results.”
Much of the state’s housing policy in recent years has focused on helping homebuyers—particularly through down payment assistance. But while these programs are important, Briones argues that they’re insufficient on their own.
“We’re in such a deep housing supply crisis that we could throw all the down payment assistance in the world at it, and we still wouldn’t make a meaningful dent in homeownership rates,” he said.
California Community Builders was involved in the design of the state’s ambitious “Dream for All” shared appreciation mortgage program, which offered 20% down to qualified buyers. The first $250 million tranche was exhausted in just two weeks, underscoring both the demand and the limited inventory available to would-be homeowners.
“Down payment assistance is incredibly important, but it doesn’t create new supply,” Briones said. “And if there aren’t homes for people to buy, especially in high-cost areas, then the assistance doesn’t go very far.”
AB 595 is designed to fill this gap by making it financially viable for developers to build homes for a “missing middle” that often falls through the cracks—too wealthy to qualify for low-income subsidies, but too poor to compete in the market.
Beyond addressing affordability, the bill is also a tool for racial and economic justice. Briones noted that the program is intentionally designed to help working families build intergenerational wealth—without creating windfalls or opportunities for flipping.
“What we’re trying to do here is, within reason, maximize wealth-building opportunities for moderate and middle-income Californians,” he said. “If a family owns a home for 15 or 20 years, they should be able to pass that value down to their kids. That’s how you start to close the racial wealth gap.”
According to UnidosUS, 1.9 million Latinos in California between the ages of 18 and 45 are “mortgage-ready”—a demographic with the income and creditworthiness to buy a home but priced out due to lack of inventory.
“This bill is an important step toward making the dream of homeownership a reality for those too often left behind,” said Esmeralda López, California State Director at UnidosUS. “We commend Assemblymember Carrillo for introducing this bill and look forward to working through the approval process.”
The need for a new tool like AB 595 has only grown more urgent. One of the few state-funded programs supporting affordable homeownership construction—CalHOME—was allocated $152 million in the 2024–25 budget, only to see its funding zeroed out in the May Revise. With few other supply-side incentives available, advocates hope AB 595 can fill a critical gap.
“Homeownership is one of the most powerful drivers of generational wealth,” said Konstantin Hatcher of California YIMBY. “It’s unacceptable that we continue to deny that opportunity to millions of Californians—especially communities of color—because we haven’t built the right policy tools. AB 595 can help change that.”
The bill has been introduced and is expected to move into committee hearings in the coming weeks. Advocates are hopeful that its mix of economic realism and moral urgency will attract bipartisan support.
“Californians pay a lot to live here, and sometimes they don’t see what their tax dollars actually get them,” Briones said. “With this program, they’ll see it in homes built for working families—homes that help people stay in their communities and plan for their futures.”
AB 595 may not be a silver bullet, but for Briones and others pushing for transformative change, it represents something California housing desperately needs: hope—and action.
So, California subsidizing developers to build more housing, and developer organizations are funding the lobbying, and a line of income above which you are the usual screwed working poor. Very little on the technical of how this works, lots of use of progressive buzzwords that progressives like to hear, and zero on potential pitfalls. Journalism this is not.
I’ll agree with Mr. Miller. No rent control! We can’t have that! No building public low-income housing (Nixon stopped the feds from building that in ’71)! Not even a supplement to Section 8 (rent subsidies)! … Oh yes, and no assurance the real estate price appreciation will be curtailed with restrictions on resale.