Capital Public Radio: California Housing Director Says Wildfires Could Amplify Housing Shortage

The state’s affordable housing crisis has developed into an emergency in areas of Northern California due to wildfires, according to California Department of Housing and Community Development Director Ben Metcalf. Metcalf said around 6,500 homes have been destroyed by wildfires in the North Bay. “In a given year, in the last 5 or 10 years in the Bay Area, we’ve only built maybe 10-15,000 homes,” Metcalf told Insight. “So in a single week, we’ve taken out half of the Bay Area’s annual  production of new housing. So that’s going to be felt in pretty immediate ways, and we’re going to have to get creative.”