On Jan. 7, an inspired group of homeless working mothers called Moms 4 Housing boldly disrupted a press conference by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, and other Democratic Party leaders promoting state Senate Bill 50.

The moms spoke out because they saw SB 50 as a ploy by speculators like Wedgewood Properties, which was threatening to evict them from the home they moved into in Oakland with their children in November. The moms pointed out that California’s problem is not so much an absolute shortage as a problem of housing distribution. Most California cities routinely exceed their market-rate and luxury housing production goals, but create only a fraction of the low-income housing needed to house the working class.