One point to add is that it's pretty expensive to build in California. Even to fix an old house could incur 20-25% more due to retrofitting for earthquakes. Getting land and whatever property isn't cheap on top of doing anything further to it. I'm in the field and started wanting to do affordable housing but the pace at which it all moves is pushing me towards other paths. Say 3-5 years for 1,200 new units to get through various agencies and built on time, most of which are not meant to be affordable units. Can people put their struggles on pause in hopes of being lucky this round? Much as may be said to signal virtue, there is an obvious informal aversion living next to poor people.
What made me laugh was when the City of Los Angeles was building those homeless shelters and still charging city fees. Way of the system, ok, but why would the city need to charge itself permitting fees? I feel there's a huge indifference to put only a facade of trying but at least it produces a few units at an astronomical cost to taxpayers. The are already paying for an annual budget half-owned by the police. Relevant point because a lot of cops and city workers don' live in the city either. They take their income and their future pensions elsewhere and the residents paying for these services get so little of those tremendous salaries reinvested back in their own communities.
Greed will always be here. I don't see it changing either unfortunately.
The truth is that Californians love expensive housing. They love having lots of jobs that attract people outside their city. They also love yelling at the people they desperately tried to attract. They love homeless people and want to support their drug problems. They never put themselves into the shoe of outsiders or even developers and care about nothing except their own selfish desires. That's what true greed looks like. It's in plain sight and until that greed is gone nothing will change.