With a little more than a week of legislating left in the year, Sacramento’s belated answer to the housing crisis is taking shape with all the speed and certainty of a California apartment complex — that is, virtually none.

This Legislature’s most prominent successful housing measure to date exempted Marin County from density standards, effectively enabling the parochial obstructionism at the heart of the shortage. Last week, however, Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders agreed on a package of bills to ease residential development and increase funding for affordable-housing programs, including a ballot measure (SB3) to authorize a $4 billion bond issue. But voting was called off Friday amid doubts about the Democrats’ ability to muster the two-thirds support needed for the other key funding bill (SB2), which would raise more than $200 million a year by imposing fees of $75 to $225 on real estate transactions.

The most important part of the package, state Sen. Scott Wiener’s bill (SB35) to expedite approval of residential developments that meet certain conditions, requires only a simple majority, unlike the funding bills. But its support appears to depend on companion spending legislation, which is a more crowd-pleasing cause than overruling local officials who want to block construction.

SB35 would only begin to address a statewide shortage of about 2 million units that is growing at a rate of 100,000 a year. The legislation funding affordable-housing programs would likely make an even more modest impact. Barring a breakthrough on those measures, however, the Legislature’s chief response to the housing crisis will have been to make it worse.

This commentary is from The Chronicle’s editorial board. We invite you to express your views in a letter to the editor. Please submit your letter via our online form: SFChronicle.com/letters.