California lawmakers appear increasingly willing to advance every response to the housing shortage that does not entail building housing.

The latest example is legislation by Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, to cap rent increases across the state, which the Assembly took the remarkable step of passing Wednesday. The bill, AB1482, would limit annual rent increases for most occupied units to 7% plus inflation. California lawmakers have repeatedly rejected rent control, and only Oregon, under a bill passed in February, has limited rent increases statewide.

The measure, which now goes before the state Senate, is a moderate effort to address one of the cruelest consequences of the housing shortage — namely, excessive rent increases that can mean the difference between a home and homelessness for the most vulnerable Californians. It would be more equitable and targeted in its effects and less of a threat to housing production than traditional local rent control policies such as San Francisco’s, which could have been expanded under a ballot initiative rejected last fall and legislation that stalled more recently.

The trouble is that no amount of government regulation can stem the tide of rising rents and spreading homelessness as long as the state has millions fewer homes than it needs. And the Senate this month all but abandoned the Legislature’s signature housing production bill, SB50 by Sen. Scott Wiener. The San Francisco Democrat’s bill would overrule restrictive local zoning to legalize apartment buildings near mass transit and employment centers. But with the apparent blessing of Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, Appropriations Chairman Anthony Portantino suspended the bill without so much as a vote despite a series of concessions and the approval of two committees.

Chiu’s rent ceiling measure was significantly weakened to win approval this week, raising the cap from 5% plus inflation and adding a sunset provision under which the bill would expire after three years unless reauthorized by the Legislature. The legislation’s potential impact was also undermined by the Assembly’s failure to advance a companion tenant protection measure that would prohibit evictions without just cause, AB1481 by Assemblyman Tim Grayson, D-Concord. Protections against steep rent increases and at-will evictions generally take place in tandem.

The case for substantial tenant protections would be stronger if lawmakers were simultaneously working to address the fundamental and persistent problem of anemic housing construction. The state and local regulations that continue to strangle California’s housing supply in the face of extraordinary demand are at the root of soaring rents, prices and homelessness.

The most recently released data showed steep increases in homelessness in the Bay Area and across the state over the past two years even as housing production crept along at less than half the needed pace last year. California has the fewest homes per person on the U.S. mainland and is home to a quarter of the country’s homeless population.

The depth of the housing shortage justifies a breadth of responses, including the affordable-housing subsidies that state and city governments have put to voters in recent years, services to help shelter and house the homeless, and tenant protections that don’t discourage residential development. But it would be bizarre indeed to kill the bill that deals with the disease afflicting California housing while settling for an attempt to mitigate its most painful symptoms. The Legislature’s ruling Democrats must revive SB50 to salvage a remotely credible response to the crisis.

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