I’m a small landlord who has lived in San Francisco most of my life. I see repealing the state restriction on rent control — the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act — as the single most important thing that we Californians need to do fight this housing crisis — and to preserve the ethnic and economic diversity of our cities. We need the local right to institute rent control that works.

I’ve lived in the Bernal Heights neighborhood since 1976. I bought a two-unit building in 1990 to support my aging parents in case they might need a place to live in their last years. Turned out that they didn’t.

So I was a landlord, with a single rent-controlled unit. I rented it at a below-market-rate rent. I figured, the folks who lived there were helping me pay my mortgage principal and interest, property taxes and insurance. Why try to squeeze every dollar I could out of them? They were becoming my neighbors.

As a senior citizen and a small landlord, I understand that I need my tenants as much as they need me. I take care of my property, provide a safe and affordable home, and they help me pay my homeowner expenses.

Many small landlords share my values, but the unfortunate reality is that, increasingly, our rental housing in California is owned by big for-profit corporations that place making unlimited profits ahead of providing affordable and healthy homes.

The state’s Costa-Hawkins act says that no housing built after 1995 may be subject to rent control. It leaves local government powerless to respond to speculators buying up thousands of homes and turning them into unaffordable rentals, and to help tenants.

In June, the median rent for a one-bedroom home in Bernal Heights was $2,790. Could you afford to live here?

This is why we must repeal Costa-Hawkins. We need strong rent control that caps rents whether or not a unit is vacated. That would remove the incentive to evict tenants and raise rents to market rates. Such local control would limit rent increases to what it costs to operate a unit.

All rent control laws allow landlords a reasonable rate of return, with annual increases. Additionally, to make sure that new development is not deterred, all rent control laws I’ve ever heard of exclude newly constructed housing units.

This year, the author of a bill to repeal Costa-Hawkins faced such opposition in the Legislature that he pulled it before it was heard in committee. Our neighbors in rental housing don’t have time to wait, however. That’s why community and tenant groups from across the state have filed ballot initiative language for the Affordable Housing Act, which will repeal Costa-Hawkins.

We hope that the Legislature will do its job in the new year, and untie the hands of our local jurisdictions that want to protect tenants from rent gouging. If they fail to do so, we will take it to the voters of the state.

As Californians, we need to ask ourselves how much should someone have to pay to keep a roof over their head? Many Californians are paying well more than 50 percent of their income on housing, leaving precious little for things like food, child care, health care and education. Currently, you have to earn $30.92 an hour, or $64,311 annually, in order to afford an average two-bedroom apartment at the fair market rent.

Rent control allows landlords like me to make a fair return on our investment and keep up with rising taxes and maintenance costs. When Costa-Hawkins is repealed, other small landlords and I will do just fine, and tens of thousands of Californians can be helped by local laws to keep skyrocketing rents in check. We need to act now.

Buck Bagot is a Bernal Heights resident and a community organizer. He’s been fighting for affordable housing since he moved to San Francisco in 1976.