By Angela Hart, Sacramento Bee

Democratic state lawmakers aiming to ease California’s housing shortage say they are focused on three bills they estimate would generate $20 billion for affordable housing development over the next five years and lead to 70,000 new low-income apartments.

They acknowledge it won’t be enough to solve the state’s unprecedented housing problems. But Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon calls the package he and other lawmakers are working on “an important first step.” The Legislature begins the final month of the 2017 session today with housing atop its agenda.

“We know we’re not going to address it entirely this year,” Rendon said in an interview. “Doing streamlining and getting some funding for affordable housing would be a tremendous victory … our efforts are going to carry into the future regardless.”

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