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rent control
Rent Control Is the American Way
Taking care of each other is a part of the American way. Politicians doing the right thing on the behalf of vulnerable tenants is also a part of the American way.
Feb 01, 2026
The real estate industry doesn’t want you to know an important fact about rent control: Since World War I, rent regulations have protected poor and middle- and working-class tenants against skyrocketing rents and predatory landlords. Rent control, in other words, has long been a part of the American way.
Soon after World War I, elected officials understood that they needed to protect tenants against sky-high rents due to a worsening housing shortage. Fair rent committees, with an emphasis on “fair,” were set up in 153 cities in the United States, and those committees routinely reached out to landlords to stop unreasonable rent hikes. In Washington D.C. and Denver, rent commissions determined fair rents, and, in New York, state legislators passed emergency laws to control sky-high rising rents.
Politicians knew that they couldn’t allow the status quo of unfair rents to continue, and they knew that they had the power to do something about it. So they stepped in to help hard-working Americans.
During World War II, politicians again did the right thing and expanded rent control. The federal government established rent control for around 80 percent of rental housing in the U.S. in response to housing shortages and rent gouging. When that federal program was phased out, some states, such as New York and New Jersey, established their own rent control policies in the early 1950s.
If there was ever time for politicians to protect tenants, now is that time, and the situation is dire.
Throughout this period, elected officials understood that tenants needed stable, affordable housing that would not force renters to choose between eating or paying the rent or paying medical bills or paying the rent. Americans’ well-being was at stake.
Fast forward to the early 1970s. With worsening inflation, rents spiked. President Richard Nixon pushed for temporary rent controls, and that was followed by American cities passing rent regulations, including Berkeley, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
Unfortunately, in the 1980s and 1990s, the deep-pocketed real estate industry pushed back, aggressively lobbying state legislatures across the country to pass rent control bans or restrictions. Landlords and lobbyists went against the American way of looking out for people.
Today, more than 35 states have laws that stop the expansion of rent control while the real estate industry’s profits, through unfair, excessive rents, go through the roof. Between 2010 and 2019, renters paid a staggering $4.5 trillion to landlords in the U.S, according to Zillow.
Recently, Big Tech and Big Real Estate teamed up to charge wildly inflated rents through a rent-fixing software program by RealPage, which brought about numerous lawsuits and investigations. The software allowed corporate landlords to collude and charge outrageous rents that harmed Americans throughout the nation.
If there was ever time for politicians to protect tenants, now is that time, and the situation is dire. Eviction Lab, the prestigious research institute at Princeton University, found that increasingly unaffordable rents are linked to higher mortality rates. And a wide-ranging study on homelessness by the University of California San Francisco revealed that people ended up living on the streets because of sky-high rents. An urgent way to address these life-threatening problems is to utilize rent control—an American tradition since World War I.
But activists believe that rent control isn’t the only tool to fix the housing affordability and homelessness crises. There needs to be a multi-pronged approach called the “3 Ps”: protect tenants through rent control and other renter protections; preserve existing affordable housing, not demolish it to make way for unaffordable luxury housing; and produce new affordable and homeless housing.
Taking care of each other is a part of the American way. Politicians doing the right thing on the behalf of vulnerable tenants is also a part of the American way. Today’s elected officials must continue that work, especially since tenants throughout the country are facing serious risks of death and homelessness. They must immediately utilize rent regulations and the 3 Ps.
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A Win for Mamdani Is a Win for Renters Everywhere
Mamdani is the antidote to the corporate landlord dominance we see in cities across the US. He doesn’t just speak on behalf of rent-stabilized tenants; he is one.
Nov 12, 2025
Zohran Mamdani, a tenant who lives in a rent-stabilized apartment and made affordable rent the primary issue in his campaign, has been elected mayor of New York City.
To be clear, a win for Mamdani is a huge win for renters—not just in New York, but across the country. Mayor-elect Mamdani has shown that a populist mayoral candidate with a bullhorn can ground a winning campaign in issues that impact constituents just trying to get by and have a decent place to live.
During the campaign, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo repeatedly attacked Mamdani for living in a rent-stabilized apartment and supporting a rent freeze. It was a display of character and courage that Mamdani never backed down. Instead, he doubled down. And the attacks against him continued through the last mayoral debate, where Mamdani stated emphatically, “You’ve heard it from Andrew Cuomo that the number one crisis in this city, the housing crisis, the answer is to evict my wife and I. He thinks you address this crisis by unleashing my landlord’s ability to raise my rent. If you think that the problem in this city is that my rent is too low, vote for him. If you know the problem in this city is that your rent is too high, vote for me.”
Mamdani understands the debate comes down to a very basic question: With rents so high, where are people supposed to live? The Starbucks barista, McDonald's worker, and Lyft driver are experiencing what most candidates are afraid to talk about—that they are one rent increase away from losing their apartment.
With over 2.3 million renters in New York City, it’s about time they elected a mayor who would put affordable rents front and center.
Too often, the dialogue around rent has been dominated by investors and corporate landlords. They seemingly have a bottomless pit of money to get their message out and line the campaign coffers of candidates who offer them carte blanche to raise rents and undermine tenants. As Mamdani stated during the race, “The same landlords who said they didn’t have enough money to freeze the rent, gave Cuomo $2.5 million dollars, the single largest check in this entire race.”
Mamdani is the antidote to the corporate landlord dominance we see in cities across the US. He doesn’t just speak on behalf of rent-stabilized tenants; he is one. And that makes all the difference.
Rent control is not new. It has been around since 1919. As real estate became more corporatized, multi-family buildings became a commodity—a line on a balance sheet. It’s less about the people and more about the building as an asset whose value is based on rents. In the 1990s, Apartment Associations led a nationwide campaign to curtail or ban altogether rent control. Currently, 37 states have banned it and states like California only allow rent control in buildings built in 1996.
Cash-strapped tenant organizations have done their best to move the needle on rent stabilization efforts, but they often face a deluge of money from the real estate industry, expensive lawsuits, and elected officials willing to reverse their progress.
Mamdani’s win as mayor signals new hope for campaigns that address the need to control skyrocketing rents. It sets in motion a new model nationwide centered on the needs of constituents, rather than corporate-dominated policies that have no tangible benefit to constituents and fail to improve the quality of life for low-income people.
With over 2.3 million renters in New York City, it’s about time they elected a mayor who would put affordable rents front and center.
Leaders across the country are watching what is happening in New York. The rents are so high that even someone working two full-time jobs can still be rent-burdened, paying over 30% of their income in rent. That is not sustainable.
New Yorkers reached a tipping point and found in Mamdani a leader who provided a platform of solutions, not more excuses for why they cannot get the relief they need. And hopefully, other cities will follow suit, attracting candidates that want to solve problems rather than kowtow to rich donors.
Let’s face it: Stabilizing housing costs is a reasonable practice, which is why most homeowners pay the same amount every month in mortgage payments. Mortgages don’t go up 17% every year to line the pockets of lenders. That would be ridiculous, and it is for renters too. Giving renters stability is not just a reasonable ask; it is a necessity.
As a lifelong renter, I believe we are on the precipice of policy change in the US. Renters and low-income communities are rising up to demand that the government acts in their interest.
Mamdani serving as mayor of America’s largest city, while living in a rent-stabilized apartment, is a game changer. More of this in other cities is desperately needed.
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Ignore the Wall Street-Funded "Science" Attacking Rent Control
We’ve seen that corporate landlords—and the economists who do their bidding—will do anything to generate billions and billions in profits by charging excessive rents year after year to vulnerable tenants with no ability to fight back.
Sep 12, 2024
If you tune into CNBC on any given morning, you will hear various economists proclaim with confidence wildly different interpretations of economic events. The same goes for what market indicators will mean for the 2024 election.
Many an investor has lost a fortune following the advice of "expert" economists. Despite its lofty claims, economics is not a “science”; it is a social science which relies on interpretations of human behavior with a subjective component. It is about as reliable as seismology: Have you noticed that most earthquakes occur on faults previously unknown?
Economists have a lousy track record at predicting recessions, which should be a source of humility. How many economists warned us of the Great Recession? Almost none.
Sure, economists are smart people, and their academic work can help to steer the ship of state and industry. However, they have no business wading into the political realm to influence voters based on their "expert" opinions.
If a lack of precision wasn't enough to expect economists to act with caution, there is the matter of corruption. Economists are paid by corporate interests to bless their profit motives. There is an inherent conflict of interest in being paid by an industry to provide the best opinion and supposed objectivity that only big money can buy. Economists are routinely paid vast sums by the highest bidder to render opinions in anti-trust lawsuits.
When the pre-purchased masters of dismal science tell you that helping renters put food on the table will destroy affordable housing, look closely at who is footing the bill for the "scientific" research.
Unlike writing for a major medical journal that rigorously investigates potential conflicts of interest, economics is an accountability-free zone. You seldom hear disclaimers that a particular economist is paid to have an opinion that supports a selfish motive. The public is rightly cynical or just flat-out ignores economists. Case in point: Tens of millions of people didn't get the memo that the U.S. economy is thriving because it isn't thriving for them. Economic terms like "pricing power" mask that the true meaning is price gouging.
A basic flaw in most economic thinking is that it begins with this premise: Maximizing profits benefits everyone. This is glaringly false when it comes to housing. In recent years, a massive wealth transfer has taken place, squeezing money from the poor and the working class and transferring it to billionaires. Some of these very same well-heeled economists are telling us that rent control is inherently disastrous economically. Yet some of the greatest cities in the world, such as New York, regulate rents.
In reality, there are many economists who believe that rent control helps keep people in their homes. Rent control is much like the minimum wage—the sky doesn't fall when the minimum wage goes up. And the real estate market won't tank because of rent control. When workers or tenants have more money in their pockets, it keeps them afloat and generates more economic activity.
In fact, a group of 32 top economists wrote a letter to the Biden administration last year, supporting rent control. They wrote that rent control will “protect tenants, stabilize neighborhoods, promote income diversity in regional economies, and improve the long-term outlook for housing affordability.” They also added, referring to predatory landlords, that “we have seen the devastating impact of a poorly regulated housing market on people’s livelihoods, as already unaffordable rental prices outpace wage growth.” They understand that only rent control will rein in the greed of corporate landlords.
That’s important. We’ve seen that corporate landlords will do anything to generate more billions by charging excessive rents year after year, and the RealPage scandal is the perfect example. Using a RealPage software program, a cartel of corporate landlords—many of whom are the largest landlords in the country—wildly inflated rents in cities across America. Now, the Department of Justice—along with numerous state attorneys general—has sued RealPage, while dozens of tenants have filed anti-trust lawsuits against RealPage and corporate landlords. It’s yet another reminder that rent regulations are glaringly needed.
So, when the pre-purchased masters of dismal science tell you that helping renters put food on the table will destroy affordable housing, look closely at who is footing the bill for the "scientific" research. Use your horse sense to determine what you know to be best for helping people in need: Rent control.
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