Everyone has a theory about who’s to blame for the housing shortage that’s driving up prices and chasing Bay Area families out of the region.

A new poll offers surprising insights into where most of us point the finger: not at the government officials who control what homes are built where, but at the tech companies that have flooded this region with jobs and the real estate developers trying to maximize profits.

Experts say finding someone to blame is not that simple. The real answer, they say, lies entangled in a complicated web that implicates everyone involved, from businesses to local elected officials to your next door neighbor. And the stakes are high for policy makers trying to untangle that web as the housing crisis intensifies. To solve the problem, it’s crucial to understand the factors that turned the Bay Area’s real estate market into one of the country’s most dysfunctional.

“There isn’t one single sector to blame for the housing crisis,” said Pilar Lorenzana, deputy director of pro-affordable housing organization SV@Home, “and consequently there isn’t one single sector that’s responsible for fixing it.”

In a five-county poll conducted for the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and this news organization, 48 percent of those surveyed pointed to tech companies as a major contributor to the region’s housing shortage. Only developers ranked higher, with 57 percent of residents saying they were a major factor.

“Before ‘Silicon Valley’ got here, it was more affordable,” said 46-year-old microbiologist Megan Moore, who has lived in La Honda her whole life. “It’s great that there are so many jobs available … but the lack of housing kind of unbalances it all.”

But some experts say city and state officials have far more control over the region’s supply of homes.

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