The Unrepentant Tenant: Rent control: Why and why

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March 24, 2022

Volume XXIX, Number 29

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Rent control: Why and why not?

by Mark Fearer

My debut column two weeks ago went into an abbreviated history of rent control (RC) in Boulder and Colorado. Now it’s time to deal with the present.

A sadly relevant detour: As I write this, I read the headline, “U.S. rents hit new high”—something I referenced in the rst line of my rst column. National rents for single family homes jumped 12.6% from last year—double the in ation rate, and far above average wage increases. While I’ll be addressing this more in later columns, in ation actually has little to do with rents for existing rental housing—but wage levels are painfully relevant for most renters. is brings me to why we need rent control. To state the obvious: We’re in the midst of the worst a ordable housing crisis ever with rents at unsustainable levels— rents are simply out of control.

One consequence is that tenants are increasingly nancially stressed. Going a little deeper, part of that stress translates into needing to move more often when the rent takes an even bigger bite out of relatively small wages. A growing number of people just barely hanging on to housing are pushed into homelessness. On a community level, lack of individual stability leads to lack of neighborhood stability. e constant churn of renters due to rent raises means tenants feel less and less rooted to a place.

It also means more people leave a community after failing to nd a ordable rents. If they still work in that community, they have to commute farther, leading to more tra c congestion, climate degradation and a lack of connection to the city they work in. Additionally, families with children have less school stability. e good news is that rent control (RC) can have the largest and quickest impact to stabilize almost half of the population. It’s already happened around the country.

Almost 200 cities in California, Oregon, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington, D.C. have laws that regulate rent increases. Not all cities in those states have RC, but it seems to be slowly increasing.

It should be noted that there are many di erent kinds of rent stabilization programs throughout the country, so