David Brenkus, the $80,000 victim. BI If you're interested in whether rent control makes rent prices go down — and plenty of people think it actually makes them go up — then stop what you're doing and watch this video on San Francisco's real-estate war, by my colleague Andrew Stern.

The video features a heartbreaking interview with artist David Brenkus, who has lived in a rent-controlled apartment on Walter Street for 34 years. His building has been bought, and now he is being evicted so the new landlord can move in. Brenkus' rent is $735 a month for a two-bedroom apartment, which includes a woodshop in the basement.

This is the centre of the entire rent-control debate, whether in San Francisco, New York, London, or anywhere else. Rents and property prices are undeniably high. Low- and moderate-income workers are being forced out of neighbourhoods they have been living in for years. And yet ...

... Brenkus' bargain-rate flat has turned out to be his undoing. Rent control is great if you're poor, at least in the short term. But here is a guy who has had three decades to buy his own place. He failed, undoubtedly, because $735 for a five-room spread tempted him into staying just a bit longer, just a bit longer, just a bit longer, and he never got around to obtaining a mortgage. (You can read a bit more about Brenkus' situation here and here.)

It's a perfect illustration of the way rent control can hurt the poor and benefit the rich, even though it is intended to do the opposite. Rent control might help poor people temporarily, but they are screwed in the long term because they don't own the place. Once the eviction notice comes, as it always does, the renter who has spent years paying below-rate prices is unequipped to deal with the realities of modern housing. (A New York real-estate appraiser once told me the same thing: "I'd never live in a rent-control unit — it ruins people's lives.")

Brenkus will have a hard time* because San Francisco's property market has gone bonkers in a way that discriminates against the poor and the middle class. But Brenkus will have a hard time also because he essentially wants to continue living in 1982, the year he moved in.

Here is the video:

*Don't feel too sorry for Brenkus. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that his new landlord is offering him an $80,000 buyout.