> Can't pass rent control, but can pass giveaways to landlords.
Rent controls do nothing to make houses more affordable at the limit, since prices reset to market any time someone leaves. They just make the market less efficient. Only adding more houses makes houses cheaper.
Tons of the world's least affordable markets are already rent controled. Rent controled apartments in SF aren't cheaper. Neither are ones in Ontario. I can't really find any evidence they work at all.
[edit] Here's a study I found on the effects of rent control in SF.
> Leveraging new data tracking individuals’
migration, we find rent control limits renters’ mobility by 20 percent and lowers displacement from San Francisco. Landlords treated by rent control reduce rental housing supplies by 15 percent by selling to owner-occupants and redeveloping buildings. Thus, while rent control prevents displacement of incumbent renters in the short run, the lost rental housing supply likely drove up market rents in the long run, ultimately undermining the goals of the law. [1]
Can't pass rent control, but can pass giveaways to landlords.