Editing Santa Cruz County, California (section)

=== Housing market ===
In 2002, the [[National Association of Realtors]] reported that Santa Cruz was the most unaffordable place to live in the United States.<ref name=":02"/> This statement remains true with 2017 data that shows that Santa Cruz is the least affordable county for renters.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=https://noplacelikehomeucsc.org/en/|title=No Place Like Home|website=No Place Like Home UCSC|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180501193634/http://noplacelikehomeucsc.org/en/|archive-date=May 1, 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In Santa Cruz County, 60% of residents rent and a median monthly rent is $3000. UCSC's No Place Like Home Project reports that in Santa Cruz County, 2.5 minimum wage jobs would be needed to afford renting a 2 bedroom apartment. UCSC's "No Place Like Home" project identifies four main rental markets: agricultural workers, UCSC students, Silicon Valley tech workers, and short term vacation rentals. Short term rentals in particular have been a rising concern to local politicians, who have proposed parking restrictions to discourage short term renters.<ref name=":11">{{Cite news|url=http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/article/NE/20170330/NEWS/170339963#author1|title=Santa Cruz County supervisors want rules for hosted rentals|last=Gumz|first=Jodi|date=March 30, 2017|work=Santa Cruz Sentinel}}</ref>

Rent control has been attempted as a policy in Santa Cruz three times between the 1970s and 1980s, but it never passed. National policies since the 1980s have deregulated rental markets, which decreased the rights of tenants and exacerbated frustrations for renters all across the country as well as in Santa Cruz.<ref name=":1" />

27% of surveyed Santa Cruz County renters experience "overcrowding" in their homes, which is described as when there is more than one person per room of a house, which includes all rooms not just bedrooms.<ref name=":1" />

One of the constraints on Santa Cruz's development are environmental protections. The restrictions on land prevent development from responding to housing and employment demands, which is an issue particularly politically relevant in the Watsonville jurisdiction. This conflict between residents wanting to protect the environment and those wanting more housing is also racially divided, as most residents favoring environmental protection are white, while the population on the side of developing housing is more heavily Latino.<ref name=":02" /> A 2010–2011 report by a Santa Cruz County grand jury states that Watsonville had no policy for assessing environmental hazards, and would give out land use and building permits without any investigations of the environmental conditions of the land in question.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.co.santa-cruz.ca.us/Portals/0/County/GrandJury/GJ2011_final/City_of_Watsonville.pdf|title=City of Watsonville: Fastest Growing City Looking For Leadership and a Fire Truck|last=Santa Cruz Grand Jury Final Report 2010-2011}}</ref>

One of the housing solutions that residents have resorted to is the occupation of accessory dwelling units. Commonly known as "mother-in-law" units, these secondary housing spaces on residential property used to be illegal to build. In 2002, Santa Cruz leaders changed the law and encouraged construction with affordable mortgages. The goal was to contain [[urban sprawl]] while still finding housing alternatives for residents in light of the crisis that was exacerbated by UCSC growth and Silicon Valley encroachment.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/realestate/in-santa-cruz-affordable-housing-without-the-sprawl.html|title=In Santa Cruz, Affordable Housing Without the Sprawl|last=Bernstein|first=Fred A.|date=February 6, 2005|work=The New York Times}}</ref>