Set against the California Housing Crisis, 'I am Applicant' is a poignant memoir of a family - a husband, wife, and their two young boys - striving to build a home for themselves in the scenic coastal town of Sausalito, California. What began as a project meant to last only a few years stretched into seven, plagued by bureaucratic hurdles, small-town politics, neighbor-on-neighbor extortion, ambiguous and subjective design approval criteria, city-imposed "Conditions of Approval", and unanticipated COVID-driven construction costs that all repeatedly threatened the existence of their future residence. I am Applicant offers an insightful glimpse into--and Kafkaesque journey through--the challenges of constructing a new house in what could be one of the toughest places to build new housing in the Country.