If they had suggested merely that housing costs are an issue for californians, I would not have argued.
Legislators seem to disagree with you and passed a bill to require relevant cities to zone for farmworker housing https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... and there is another one proposed this year.
Everything I read attribute this to a lack of housing supply. https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/19/housing-affordability... and http://capitolweekly.net/crisis-affordable-housing-grips-cal...
For instance, Stockton leads California rent increases with a 10.4 percent increase in rental price between July 2016 and July 2017 and their home prices have increased 92% in the last 5 years. In a supply balanced market this would not happen as the landlors do not have leverage to increase rent this much, and developers/owners don't have the leverage to sell housing for this much more.
The Cal budget center presents these facts: http://calbudgetcenter.org/resources/californians-parts-stat...
* The problem is state-wide. Cost burdened or severely cost burdened renters; Far north 42%, San Francisco Bay Area 37.8%, Sacramento Region 38.4%, Central Valley 38.9%, Sierra Nevada 36.8%, Central Coast 42.1%, los angeles and south coast 46.1%, Inland Empire 42.7%
* more than half of California's renters and over a third of homeowners with mortgages face high housing costs
* 8 in 10 low income Californians have unaffordable housing costs
The US census shows that people without means can't afford the living costs are self-selecting themselves away:
* A snapshot of more recent U.S. Census migration numbers shows that nearly three-quarters of those who have left California for other states since 2007 earn less than $50k a year.