I'm trying here to dissuade you of the notion that this is a simple supply/demand problem because it seems to be the only thing Democrats and Republicans in California can agree upon. By their consensus, this is a problem of not having enough housing and, thus, what is needed is to merely build more. From the CalWatchdog.com article:

But while there’s broad agreement that housing affordability is in crisis, there are two schools of thought on how to address it. Democrats are primarily trying to raise taxes and fees to pay for more government-subsidized affordable housing, whereas Republicans want the state to chip away at local governmental barriers to home construction.

Democrats, who control the government in California, have all kinds of proposals for subsidizing housing:

Their high-priority measure, when legislators return to the Capitol late next month, is Senate Bill 2, which would impose fees of $75 to $225 on every real-estate transaction to provide $225 million in annual funding to subsidize developers of low-income housing.

“With a sustainable source of funding in place, more affordable housing developers will take on the risk that comes with development and, in the process, create a reliable pipeline of well-paying construction jobs,” according to the Senate bill analysis.

What is $225 million in the context of California's housing market? The real estate journal First Tuesday reports that, in 2016, there were 49,400 single family homes and 51,200 multi-family units constructed. A $225 million "sustainable source of funding" would amount to a little more than $2,200 per unit.

Let's say we focused that money to subsidize 5% of the new units being constructed, a total of 5,030 new affordable units each year, and we assumed that the entire fund went to the subsidy (no bureaucratic overhead). We'd then be able to reduce the cost of a unit by $45,000; this in a state where the median single family home price is $516,000.

To put this another way, the subsidy -- again, assuming no bureaucratic overhead -- would take $190 per month off of a $2,170 per month mortgage, assuming a down payment of $51,000 on the median home. For comparison, a 1% increase in interest rates would add $270 per month to the same mortgage. (In reality, a 1% increase in interest rates would lower home prices because buyers could purchase less home for the payment they can -- or can't -- afford.)

In short, if the goal is to subsidize our way out of this mess, Senate Bill 2 isn't going to make a dent. San Diego columnist Dan McSwain perfectly described the outcome of such a policy:

Kafka could hardly design a better shortage-inducing system: Raise the overall price of market units, thus ensuring that fewer get built, in order to subsidize a handful of poor families — having been rendered unable to afford the pricey units — who win a lottery administered by local government agencies, with staffs funded by housing fees that inflate prices.

Senate Bill 2 would -- if approved by voters -- authorize the state to borrow $3 billion to build low income housing (along with transit-oriented housing) because it's not like California should have any concerns over high debt levels.

Then there is Senate Bill 35. Proposed by Senator Scott Wiener, it doesn't "chip away at local government barriers to home construction," unless your idea of a chipper comes from the movie Fargo. The bill reportedly:

“creates a streamlined, ministerial approval process for development proponents of multi-family housing if the development meets specified requirements and the local government in which the development is located has not produced enough housing units to meet its regional housing needs assessment,” according to the bill summary. The streamlined process would apply where a project meets “objective zoning, affordability, and environmental criteria, and if the projects meet rigorous labor standards,” according to Wiener.

That's a rather benign way of saying that, if the state approves of your development, they will override local approval processes. Such legislation is always the last resort for tragically brittle systems. Layer upon layer of regulation and protection is put in place until the system comes grinding to a halt. The only way around it is the strong man tactic. The acceptability of this approach usually depends on whether or not it is your chosen strong man (or woman) who wields power. Californians supporting Senate Bill 35 might be less enamored if it were the right-leaning U.S. Senate instead of the left-leaning State Senate ramming approvals down people's throats.