The California Housing and Homelessness Agency consolidates five existing departments and offices, including the Department of Housing and Community Development and the state's homelessness council.
Secretary Tomiquia Moss says the goal is a one-stop shop that gets housing built faster.
"When a person wants to build housing in California, right now," Moss pointed out, "they have to go to several different departments across state government. It takes them years to stack enough financing to be able to build the building."
The agency also created a new Housing Development and Finance Committee. It's designed as a single point of contact for developers seeking state funding for affordable multifamily projects.
Ben Metcalf is with the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley. He says the change should help.
"Historically, developers having to go door to door to different state entities to cobble together all the funding that they need adds a lot of time and a lot of cost to projects," said Metcalf.
Metcalf, who previously led the state’s housing and community development agency, says many barriers to building housing are still at the local level. Those include permit delays and impact fees that can run up to $100,000 per home before construction even begins. Reforms at the state level, he says, are only part of the solution.