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When he took office this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom inherited an expansive, consuming problem. The state doesn’t have enough housing, and what housing it does have is rapidly becoming too expensive for most people who live and work in the state.

Legislators have tried to make a dent in various aspects of the crisis. Today, my colleague Jennifer Medina explores how one of Mr. Newsom’s efforts is playing out in a Southern California city.

Not too long after he took office, Mr. Newsom, in his State of the State address, called out several cities he said were not doing their fair share to develop more affordable housing. Among them: Montebello, a historic middle class suburb just east of Los Angeles that was once referred to as a Mexican-American Beverly Hills.

Just a short drive away from Downtown Los Angeles, Montebello has long attracted government employees and other white-collar workers eager to buy modest single-family homes — a kind of “promised land” for those looking to get out of the city. Today, three-bedroom homes can be found for around $500,000 — a relative bargain compared with much of Los Angeles. So it was, at least in some ways, a bit of an odd choice for the governor’s ire.