Andrew Crockett’s Core Positions: HOUSING

People ask me why the Assessor’s data is relevant to our current housing crisis. Let me put it this way: Would you agree to surgery if the Doctor was going to just “figure it out along the way?” Of course not - and yet, our officials are currently trying to solve the housing crisis by doing just that! Why? Because they have no authoritative data to help diagnose factors in the crisis. But what if I told you that the present Santa Clara County Assessor has the authoritative data RIGHT NOW? Not only that, the Assessor has actively avoided making this data available to civic, community, and nonprofit agencies for 28 years!

How is he doing this? It’s all in the fees. Want a copy of the “Property Characteristics File”? How deep are your pockets? For the same data that is provided for free in Florida, or is available for $350 in San Francisco, a copy of this file will set you back $47,195 in Santa Clara County. Yes, you heard that right! The incumbent keeps public data collected at taxpayer expense behind a 47 thousand dollar paywall. That’s more than the annual budget of many small nonprofits for a spreadsheet file that fits onto a single CD. His excuse is it’s “not his job” to make this data available to the same people that pay for his budget.

Furthermore, what if you heard that the incumbent is even proud that our rents are increasing, because it benefits investors? I might add that these are the same investors that are presently outbidding first-time homebuyers! In the last decade, Santa Clara County homeownership has fallen 11.9%, according to the Santa Clara County Office of the Assessor’s 2020-2021 Annual Report, yet the incumbent claims in that same report that this is due to a “trend by Millenials [sic] to rent rather than buy.” Considering that rents are often higher than house payments, what else is going on? What insights might be gained from analyzing the data collected by the Assessor’s Office? Perhaps investors buying rental properties have priced first time buyers out of the market. What other factors might be blocking South Bay working families from getting out of the rental trap? Is this trap something the incumbent has helped to create? Some claim data isn’t valuable. Consider that the Assessor’s Office thinks it’s worth $47K, just see it.

We must escape this “Stone Age”, and as Assessor Andrew Crockett, I will make sure the Assessor’s data is available to appropriate stakeholders, and work with them to make the information useful to their needs.

You paid for this data: and I want you to benefit from it - with better planned communities, ample housing, and the ability for anyone who wants to buy a home to have an honest chance at achieving that dream.