State housing law requires the California Department of Housing and Community Development to determine the total number of new homes a region needs to build—and how affordable those homes need to be—to meet the housing needs of people at all income levels. The region then distributes a share of the housing need to each local government in the region. Each local government must then update its Housing Element of its general plan to show the locations where housing can be built and the policies and strategies necessary to meet the community’s housing needs.