Actually, let’s settle on half an ounce.”Such is the situation with California’s housing shortage. Now, if only anyone could agree on how big the housing shortage actually is. That’s how many homes the state needs to add that are affordable to people making under a certain income. The concept of a “housing shortage” is, in theory, pretty simple, said Anjali Kolachalam, an analyst at Up For Growth. These variations in methods help explain some of the differences in the shortage estimates.