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Rent control is making a comeback. Across the country, tenants and housing justice organizers are taking on the mighty real estate lobby and its political allies through a powerful escalation of legislative and electoral activity. Oregon enacted a statewide rent cap in February. In Florida, Colorado, Illinois, and Nevada, state legislators introduced bills to lift bans against rent control. And in California, despite the defeat of Prop 10 — which would have allowed the expansion of rent control — another package of legislation has been introduced that would remove state-level restrictions on rent control, make eviction protections widespread, and prevent rent gouging. Chicago-area voters have voted overwhelmingly three times now for rent control, while in Novem­ber, the New York state senate flipped from red to blue largely on a “universal rent control” platform. Federally, Senator Elizabeth Warren has included incentives for localities to pass rent control in her new housing bill. We face the worst renter crisis in a generation. The market has never met the needs of low-income renters, and production is increasingly geared at the luxury end. The largest corporate landlords have gained an unprecedented share of rental properties, while the deregulation of Wall Street has fueled heightened speculation. In this context, big real estate has poured tremendous funding into public relations campaigns that allege rent control hurts renters. But powerful tenant, community, and political organizing is pushing back and demanding housing policies that are accountable to tenants’ needs. The Center for Popular Democracy, the Right to the City Alliance, and PolicyLink recently released a report, “Our Homes, Our Future,” to highlight the critical importance of rent control. Our networks actively support tenant organizing across the country. In this report and through our affiliates’ organizing, we demand that policymakers put human needs first. Rent control matches the size and urgency of the renter crisis. Few other policies can offer meaningful relief that is as quick and far-reaching. If rent control campaigns underway in six states and two cities succeed, 12.7 million renter households would be stabilized — at little to no cost to government. If adopted nationally, 42 million households could be stabilized. Rent control operates by setting a predictable schedule for allowed rent increases, usually a maximum percentage. In cities where rent control already exists, it is often the largest source of affordable housing. Strengthening and expanding rent control would help move us towards a more equitable, inclusive economy and society. Jacqueline Luther, a renter in Los Angeles, puts it this way: “We need stronger rent control, to live our best lives.”

On “Unintended Consequences” The common argument against rent control goes like this: according to supply-side economics, any kind of rent regulation will dampen construction and supply. Thus, rent control’s opponents say, it will ultimately lead to a worse housing shortage, and hence, even higher rents, especially for uncontrolled units. Crucially, rent control does not, on balance, cause rents in non–regulated units to increase. Rent control is not the driver of speculation, gentrification, or a housing shortage. In Massachusetts, California, and New Jersey, rent control slightly improved affordability in noncontrolled units or had no harmful effect on these rents. The evidence shows it’s lifting or loosening rent control that fuels skyrocketing rents across the board. Empirical evidence shows that rent control does not hurt housing construction. In fact, the two can go hand-in-hand. Firstly, in the US rent controls don’t cover new construction anyway. But also, the housing market is more complicated than Econ 101 theory — overall market conditions and zoning have far greater influence on construction. And whereas housing debates focus largely on private construction, there’s also the option of pairing rent control with massive public construction to turn housing shortages into surpluses by building public and social housing, at far greater speed than the private market. Rent control does not necessarily lead to declines in maintenance, either. While the research can appear ambiguous, it is important to distinguish improvements in buildings’ cosmetic appearance from functional maintenance that is critical to health and safety. When rent control is abolished or weakened, we’ve seen increased gentrification and the cosmetic building improvements associated with it. However, studies show that rent control had no negative impact on plumbing, an indicator of functional maintenance, or on abandonment. In Washington DC, the share of physically deficient units declined after rent stabilization was implemented; and rent-controlled units were even less likely to be deficient than non-controlled units, despite the latter being more expensive. Many tenants report that rent control, combined with strong code enforcement, gives them the legal mechanisms and leverage to attain improved conditions – for example, by putting rent in escrow until landlords respond to repair demands. Without protection, tenants often fear asking for repairs, because eviction through rent increases can always be the retaliation. Opponents say that compared to means-tested subsidies, rent control is “inefficient” at helping the needy, because any tenant gains are canceled by landlord losses. But whereas the largest corporate landlords would hardly miss $1,000, this amount is significant for low-income households. Economists’ cost-benefit analyses, which only compare dollar amounts and not their human impact, ignore such distinctions. Nor do they typically include the costs to the government or public of homelessness and displacement. Rent control helps stretch limited, means-tested subsidies, which reach only a small fraction of those in need, and with its more universal scope, can promote social equity on a larger scale.