As awkward as it is, the purpose of property taxes is to keep land economically productive. These policies are needed to enable governments to provision services and at least slow down the hereditary growth of wealth. If you can't afford the house, that's the policies working as intended. It's time to sell and get something you can afford.

Real pain, and the empathy and compassion that respond to it, do not always justify a change in public policy. Especially in a place like California, where we tend to enact that wonderful empathy and compassion as half-assed public policy that transfers wealth from the young to the older.

If people are worried about high home and property tax prices, isn't it time for them to move to an area they can afford?

Empathy is a powerful emotion, but not a good way to get to sound policy. It's rarely difficult to find a way to evoke empathy on any side of any given issue.