Boomers, especially if they were white, got to buy houses, and then they zoned everyone else out.

Yep. 90% of the homelessness crisis results from NIMBYism. It’s a lot easier to not be homeless when rent is $400 a month rather than $2,000 a month. I also blame economists who consistently lie about the cost of housing and the drivers behind the inflation there. The truth, though, is this.

In 1981, at 24, I bought my first house. At a price of $70,000, it cost less than three times my annual salary of $25,000, which was roughly the median income in Sacramento County. If adjusted for inflation alone, the home’s value would be $218,000 four decades later, and my salary $78,000.

The median household income in the county today is about $84,000, not far from what inflation would predict. But Zillow estimates that my former home is now worth $578,000, more than double what can be attributed to inflation. My annual wages would need to be more than $190,000 to afford the house as easily as I did then. This is what the children and grandchildren of boomers face.

Notice that this is the same house. So the economists’ usual excuse of “houses just got bigger, the cost per square foot is the same!” cannot be used here. Also, the Case-Shiller method uses the same houses (which economists don’t like you to know) for its calculations. Our so-called experts are just about worthless for anything that matters.