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Why We Need Rent Control [1]

['Fran Quigley', 'David Broder', 'Alexander Zaitchik', 'Alex N. Press', 'Brahvan Ranga', 'Brian J. Sullivan', 'J. W. Mason', 'Samuel Stein']

Date: 2023-08

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Why We Need Rent Control Rent control is government-imposed limitations on the amount landlords can charge for rent. Rent control opponents often disingenuously refer to rent control as a total freeze on rents, but almost all current rent control programs allow for regular rent increases, often a significant percentage plus an increase that reflects inflation. For example, the New York City Rent Guidelines Board recently voted to allow rent increases of 3 percent (in the face of significant protest). The state of Oregon’s rent control even allows landlords to increase their rent in 2023 by 14.6 percent. Rent control protects tenants like Ashley from price gouging while also guaranteeing landlords a return on their investment. Yet most US states and cities allow landlords like Ashley’s to spike up the rent as high as they wish. Meanwhile, the landlord lobbyist industry has spent hundreds of millions of dollars spewing false claims about rent control in ad campaigns and in media appearances where their baseless statements too often go unchallenged. Here we take on all of those industry lies and summarize the dozen best arguments in support of rent control:

2. Rent Control Provides Widespread Relief. In cities with active rent control, the number of households with stabilized rents far exceeds households living in public and subsidized housing. So it is important to resist landlord lobbyists’ attempts to water down rent control’s impact. There is no justification for exempting from controls some rental property, like single-family homes or mobile homes, exemptions that disproportionately harm rural renters. The same is true for “vacancy decontrol,” a loophole that allows landlords to spike rents between tenants, creating a strong incentive for unjustified evictions that is proven to disproportionately harm black renters. Most important, rent control works. Landlord lobbyists have been able to sow popular confusion about the impact rent control has on new housing construction and whether the poorest renters benefit the most. But even the landlord lobbyists can’t argue with the data showing that rent control effectively addresses the pressing crisis: simply put, rent control lowers the cost of housing compared to unregulated housing. The price of for-profit housing, even when controlled, is still too high for the many renters we see in eviction court who have limited incomes due to disability and family obligations. For them, nonmarket housing is a necessity. But as these same clients tell us all the time, every dollar reduced from their rent puts them a dollar closer to the safety and security they need and deserve. Speaking of security, the evidence is extremely solid that rent control leads to tenants staying in their homes for a longer period of time. That is a benefit so important that it deserves two of its own arguments:

4. Rent Control Brings Stability to Communities. The value of rent control extends beyond the walls of the homes of those whose costs are regulated. In their comprehensive report on rent control, researchers Amee Chew and Sarah Treuhaft point to “cascading” benefits to rent control that flow to the community at large. Renters who stay in their homes for longer periods are more likely to be civically engaged, an outcome that has powerful anti-crime effects. Children staying in the same school longer reduces the need for additional educational intervention. Economically, renters with controlled rent costs that allow them to stay in a community spend money there, boosting local businesses in a way that remotely located real estate speculators of those same houses do not. Without rent control, much-needed service sector and caregiving workers are forced by high rents in cities to live far away from urban centers, often compelling them to rely on cars instead of mass transit for their commutes. We have many clients who are forced to drive each day to the areas where the best-paying jobs are available. Under rent control, these workers can live in neighborhoods close to those jobs.

7. Landlord Lobbyists’ Claims That Rent Control Harms Housing Conditions Don’t Hold Up. Landlords covet long-term, reliable renters who take care of the property. Those tenants reduce landlords’ costs significantly by allowing them to bypass the work and expense of turnover and avoidable maintenance. So it is ironic that landlord lobbyists like the National Apartment Association and the National Association of Realtors claim that rent control, which is proven to boost tenant stability, will reduce the quality of rental housing. These lobbyists’ argument is that rent control discourages landlord investment in maintenance and improvements. Putting aside the ethical issues invoked by landlords insisting they will refuse to maintain their rental properties if their profits are not unlimited, simple enforcement of existing housing codes should remedy any issues with landlords refusing to keep up their properties. As for improvements, landlords of rent-controlled units often find their tenants to be willing partners in home maintenance and remodeling. These tenants’ longer and more secure tenure incentivizes them to make their own improvements to the homes they plan to occupy for many years. As University of Virginia economist Edgar Olsen concluded after his review of the data: “There is no basis for economists’ strongly-held belief that rent control leads to worse maintenance.” Guess who is fully aware that rent control can actually lead to improved conditions? Landlord lobbyists. In a comprehensive 154-page report on rent control prepared in 2017 for the National Association of Realtors, which vehemently resists rent control, law professor Valerie Werness acknowledges not only that the evidence does not show rent control leads to worse maintenance or less housing construction, rent control may not even reduce landlord profits. As of this writing, the report is still available on the NAR website here.

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[1] Url: https://jacobin.com/2023/07/rent-control-arguments-myths-housing-real-estate

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