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Matt and Liam delve into one aspect of California’s housing crisis that doesn’t receive much attention: the shortage of construction labor to build the houses the state so desperately needs. An Avocado of the Fortnight (2:15) first takes us to Orange County, where the question of where to shelter the region’s growing homeless population has provoked some interesting reactions from local political leaders. Then a discussion of why the construction labor shortage hasn’t received a ton of attention (7:00), some of the reasons for the shortage they’ve heard (12:00), and the politics of prevailing wage (14:00). Then an interview with Sacramento-area homebuilder Rachel Bardis on how the labor shortage impacts the work she does (23:00), followed by an interview with Alex Lantsberg, an analyst for the San Francisco electricians’ union (41:30).

Note: We know we say Alex is our first guess on the podcast, but it’s Rachel.

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Matt Levin was the data and housing dude for CalMatters. His work entails distilling complex policy topics into easily digestible charts and graphs, finding and writing original stories from data, yelling...