Whether Joe Biden is the Democratic presidential nominee or not, the fact that he called for nationwide rent-increase caps this past week is a refreshing turn toward pro-tenant policy at a time when millions of renters are all but ignored by both parties.
People attend a rally to support rent-controlled tenants who have been threatened with eviction on March 13, 2019, in New York City. (Andrew Lichtenstein / Corbis via Getty Images)
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden called on Congress to cap rent increases at 5 percent — the first time a sitting president has embraced rent control since Richard Nixon implemented widespread price control measures amid hyperinflation in the early 1970s. This extraordinary announcement follows the successes of a growing nationwide tenant movement that has won local and state rent control campaigns in New York, California, Minnesota, Maine, Oregon, and Maryland over the last few years.
The announcement comes at a time when the Biden administration is struggling to revive its reelection campaign and quiet calls for him to step down from running for a second term, of course. The president seems to believe that bold pro-worker policy proposals can push him through to a second term. Whether or not it works, rent caps are a refreshing step in the right direction in a country where millions of renters are suffering badly.
Biden’s proposal for rent caps would protect tenants who live in “corporate-owned buildings” from increases larger than 5 percent for two years. “Corporate” is defined as landlords who own more than fifty apartments in their portfolio. Landlords who don’t comply would risk losing generous property tax write-offs. The plan, which requires congressional approval, is unlikely to become law in the current political environment. Nonetheless, Tuesday’s call for rent caps is a major milestone for renters, largely organized at the national level through the newly formed Tenant Union Federation.
While rent control is often maligned by conservative economists, the truth is that it works. It promotes affordability, high-quality housing, and stabilizes whole neighborhoods in the face of rapidly rising cost of living. By preventing sudden price hikes, it supports households and neighborhoods facing gentrification. By giving tenants the right to renew leases (preventing landlords from choosing not to re-sign the leases of tenants who organize against them or replacing longtime residents with tenants willing to pay higher rents), it ensures families in distressed neighborhoods can organize against divestment and demand repairs without fear of retaliatory eviction. Rent control is a critical part of any comprehensive housing policy concerned with promoting stable neighborhoods and affordable communities.
But rent control has never been the preferred policy choice of either major political party in the United States. Our enduring mythology around the “American dream” is reflected in almost every major domestic policy decision related to housing. US policy is overwhelmingly geared toward subsidizing homeownership not just as a housing policy but as a stand-in for a real social safety net.
If you want to send your children to a good public school, buy a house in the right neighborhood. As property values go up, so does the funding of the local elementary school. If you want to fund health care or higher education, take out a second mortgage. If you want end-of-life care, you better hope that the equity you invested in your home will pay for that.
There is an obvious twist embedded in that great dream: in order to reap the benefits of homeownership, property values must continuously go up. This makes the whole market more expensive — and, in turn, the whole supposed opportunity is less available to others. For decades, the neoliberal response to rising costs has been subsidizing homeowners and homeownership, putting more and more state resources into a private market that more and more people are excluded from. Today homeownership is out of reach in almost every major city, homelessness is at record highs, and the population increasingly cannot afford their monthly shelter costs.
Rent stabilization should become the de facto policy of the Democratic Party.
Biden’s preferred policy is far from perfect. A two-year proposal to cap rents “while we wait for supply to come online” misses the mark. In fact, as investment flows into cities and housing production increases, rent stabilization becomes more important than ever: it protects against displacement and rising housing costs and promotes economically and racially diverse neighborhoods in the face of gentrification.
And by choosing to only regulate landlords who own more than fifty apartments, Biden’s proposal still leaves millions of renters at the whims of their landlords. Just as we should not exempt local restaurant owners from health and safety regulations or minimum wage provisions, we should not leave the housing stability of millions of people to the goodwill of the person who collects their rent.
Yet a sitting president calling for rent control — however tepid — is a major turn in a new direction for domestic public policy from the most powerful Democrat in the United States. Rather than treat renters — forty-four million households — as second-class citizens, the president explicitly is acknowledging that our housing stability matters, and that the way to achieve that is to regulate how much landlords can charge in rent.
Rent control is not just good public policy — it’s good politics. According to a recent analysis of voting patterns in New York out of Cornell University, running on tenants’ rights activates a voting block that is likely to vote Democratic. In New York, where half of the city is rent stabilized, rent stabilized tenants are a major political force that would-be office holders must contend with.
And unlike rental assistance, which individualizes the problem of not being able to afford rent and strips economic power (for example, the power to rent strike) away from its recipients, rent control creates a political class of tenants who can be organized to defend and strengthen their rights. The Biden administration proposal has the potential to create a major working-class voting constituency beyond any one election cycle.
Biden’s campaign is on life support, but the Democratic nominee for president, whoever it ends up being, should take up his call and campaign vigorously for renter protections. Right now, thirty-seven states have outright bans on rent control. Michigan, Colorado, Illinois, or Pennsylvania — swing states and blue states with Democratic governors who presumably would like to support the top of the ticket — should act swiftly and lift statewide bans on rent stabilization.
Rent stabilization should become the de facto policy of the Democratic Party. While the left of the party, like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has long supported rent stabilization, more recently fifteen Senators, including Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, joined the Tenant Union Federation in calling on Biden to cap rent hikes.
While this specific proposal is unlikely to happen without a major shift in political power, the announcement last week makes clear that the shift is on the way. Building by building, block by block, tenants are getting organized — and getting results.