News & Updates

PD Editorial: After Measure C, housing solutions are still needed -- The Press Democrat, June 8, 2017
"Santa Rosa voters soundly, and we believe wisely, rejected Measure C, which would have imposed price controls on a fraction of the city’s rental market. But, as both sides know, the underlying problem — an alarming shortage of housing — hasn’t gone away." (read the full editorial here) 

Santa Rosa rent control beaten at ballot box -- The Press Democrat, June 6, 2017 "Santa Rosa voters soundly rejected the controversial rent control law passed by the City Council last summer...Final returns Tuesday night showed Measure C failing with 52.5 percent of the vote compared to 47.5 percent in support." (read the full article here)

PD Editorial: No on Measure C: This is wrong tool for fixing Santa Rosa's housing crisis -- The Press Democrat, May 7, 2017
"Measure C provides an ax, one that would divide the community between the haves and have-nots and between winners and losers. This is not the tool that Santa Rosa needs. The Press Democrat recommends a no vote on Measure C." (read the full editorial here)

Santa Rosa rent control: Sides for and against debate June ballot measure -- North Bay Business Journal, May 3, 2017
"Measure C’s passage would create a new bureaucracy to manage the ordinance, estimated to cost approximately $1.4 million (annually). The intent is for the annual program fee to cover all the city’s costs. Proposed funding would come from the landlords, and half the fee could be passed on to tenants." (read the full article here)

Showdown looms as rent control battle rages -- Affordable Housing Finance, April 11, 2017
"It’s a disaster for the larger numbers of low- and moderate-income folks who simply won’t find housing at any price anywhere near their jobs due to the lack of real action on housing." (read the full article here) 

It isn't complicated: People need a place to live -- The Press Democrat, April 9, 2017
"Anyone who is relying on rent control to solve the housing crisis is fated to disappointment. Without a broad consensus on the need to build more houses and apartment buildings, this drift toward a less vital and healthy community will continue." (read the full article here)

Rent Control's Dirty Little Secrets -- Fox & Hounds: Keeping Tabs on California Business and Politics, March 23, 2017
"Rent control is hardly the panacea its advocates say it is.  Indeed, as the above shows, the only beneficiaries of rent control are rich or well-off people who game the system.  And, as the above demonstrates clearly, rent control makes a pretty crummy housing policy." (read the full article here)

Perspectives on Helping Low-Income Californians Afford Housing -- CA Legislative Analyst's Office, February 9, 2016
“Many housing programs—vouchers, rent control, and inclusionary housing—attempt to make housing more affordable without increasing the overall supply of housing. This approach does very little to address the underlying cause of California’s high housing cost: a shortage of housing.” (read the full report here)

The High Cost of Rent Control -- National Multifamily Housing Council, 2016
"Economists have long considered rent control a failed housing policy. As Dr. Anthony Downs, a leading economist and nationally-recognized expert on housing policy, concluded in a recent report on rent controls, other than during wartime, the economic and social costs of rent control "almost always outweigh any perceived short-term benefits they provide." He also found that rent controls are both "unfair to owners of rental units and damaging to some of the very low income renters they are supposed to protect." Given this fact, reliance on rent control as a solution to the problem of housing affordability cannot be justified." (read the full article here)

Do rent controls work? -- The Economist, August 31, 2015
"When prices are capped, people have less incentive to fix up and rent…or to build rental property. Slower supply growth exacerbates the price crunch…Rent controls also mean that landlords may also become choosier…and some evidence shows that those living in rent-controlled flats in New York tend to have higher median incomes than those who rent market-rate apartments." (read the full article here)

Reckonings: A Rent Affair -- The New York Times
"The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and -- among economists, anyway -- one of the least controversial…a poll of the American Economic Association found 93 percent of its members agreeing that 'a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing.'"
- Paul Krugman, New York Times Columnist and Winner of the Nobel Prize (read Paul's full article here)