When he was running for governor three years ago, Gavin Newsom promised, rather absurdly, that he would spearhead a drive to build 3.5 million new housing units by 2025. It was absurd because it would require California to escalate new construction from about 100,000 units a year to 500,000, which would be financially and physically impossible. Once elected, Newsom backed away from that pledge, calling it âaspirational,â but he did attempt, a year ago, to once again focus attention on the stateâs housing crisis by devoting nearly all of his State of the State address to it and the closely related homelessness issue.