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The Unrepentant Tenant: What rent control
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July 14, 2022
Volume XXIX, number 44
Cover photo: Peter Jamison, featuring athlete Hannah Bergemann
As Boulder County's only independently owned newspaper, Boulder Weekly is dedicated to illuminating truth, advancing justice and protecting the First Amendment through ethical, no-holds-barred journalism, and thought-provoking opinion writing. Free every Thursday since 1993, the Weekly also offers the county's most comprehensive arts and entertainment coverage. Read the print version, or visit boulderweekly.com. Boulder Weekly does not accept unsolicited editorial submissions. If you're interested in writing for the paper, please send queries to: editorial@boulderweekly.com. Any materials sent to Boulder Weekly become the property of the newspaper.
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welcomes your correspondence via email (letters@boulderweekly.com) or the comments section of our website at www.boulderweekly.com. Preference will be given to short letters (under 300 words) that deal with recent stories or local issues, and letters may be edited for style, length and libel. Letters should include your name, address anonymous letters or those signed with pseudonyms. Letters become the property of Boulder Weekly and will be published on our website. Since the beginning of this column in March, I’ve focused on rent control—then I pivoted, uncovering the broader history of tenant activism in Boulder. But in the last month there’ve been two public rallies bringing attention to the issue of rent stabilization/control. e rst rally happened on June 30 on the State Capitol steps in Denver, with some righteous pushback against Gov. Jared Polis because of his veto threat over a provision to limit rent increases on mobile home lots.
And then, Sunday, July 3, Colorado Homes for All coalition had a rally at the State Capitol to get local o cials to put pressure on state legislators to reverse the 41-yearold ban on rent control. In record heat, tenants told their stories of crippling and unjusti ed rent increases and their choice to pay or leave. So, it’s time to return to a deeper look into the most e ective approach there is for curbing out-of-control rents
What rent control could have (notice I didn’t say “solution”). Even rent control proponents acknowledge looked like for Boulder its limitations in a free market system. Rent control was meant to limit future by Mark Fearer rent increases—it generally doesn’t have the ability to bring rents back to more reasonable levels. My rst ve columns (March-May 2022) dealt with some of the background of rent control policies, politics and myths. As I mentioned in those earlier columns, the Renters Rights Project (RRP), in early 1981, started a petition to get “moderate rent control” on the Boulder ballot. It immediately ignited massive and predictable opposition from landlords and their allies, resulting in a statewide ban on rent control a few months later. So, what is moderate rent control? When many people think of rent control, they think of New York City or what was termed “restrictive” rent control. is kind of rent control, developed shortly after WWI, was needed given the acute housing shortage and rent gouging that had developed. Rent strikes throughout NYC led to the Emergency Rent Laws of 1920. ose laws expired after nine years,
