By David Greenwald, Vanguard News Group

SAN DIEGO, Calif. — A newly released affordable housing report from San Diego County provides evidence that California’s years-long push for housing reform may be slowly beginning to produce measurable progress, even if the full impacts of those changes will take years to materialize.

The report, highlighted last week by KPBS, found that while San Diego County remains mired in a severe affordability crisis, the region experienced a substantial increase in affordable housing production over the past year.

According to the California Housing Partnership’s 2026 Affordable Housing Needs Report, developers built or preserved thousands of affordable housing units despite a decline in state and federal housing funding.

The report found affordable housing production increased by roughly 90 percent compared to the previous year.

At the same time, the report also found that nearly 130,000 low-income renter households in San Diego County still lack access to an affordable home.