Rent control is ‘a ludicrous idea,’ and so is blocking housing – Press Enterprise

For the third time in four election cycles, Michael Weinstein is using money from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) to try to attack apartment owners.

Weinstein says he wants to do this to protect tenants — although he himself has been called a slum landlord by the Los Angeles Times because of the condition of the properties AHF owns.

The political tactics of AHF and Weinstein were so caustic that the foundation lost millions of dollars in grants and contracts from the state and federal government.

So the idea that Weinstein has “strange bedfellows,” as Politico reported this week, is exaggerated. But not as far-fetched as the title of their article – “Republicans…for Rent Control?”

Housing is a nonpartisan issue – it’s not about which party supports which policy, because any honest politician knows that supporting rent control is simply pandering to the voters who demand that policy. Historically, this is a disastrous approach to affordability.

This no longer produces housing – quite the opposite, as Minneapolis recently discovered and had to change its laws to try to encourage housing development.

This does not reduce the demand for housing, as the population continues to grow.

That doesn’t make housing more affordable — California rents fell everywhere last year — except in rent-controlled communities.

This doesn’t help those who need it – the blanket approach to housing policy ends up keeping rent-controlled housing in the hands of those who know how to take advantage of the laws. Ask Berkeley how many professors “live” in rent-controlled housing during the week and then return to the homes they own in exclusive communities like Marin, Tahoe, and Monterey on the weekends.

However, that’s not what Politico focused on, it’s not what Weinstein is interested in, and it’s not what Councilmember Strickland said – which they even included in their article: “Statewide rent control is a ridiculous idea, but the language of the measure goes further. It gives local governments ironclad protections against state housing policy and, therefore, over-enforcement.”

Strickland goes on to explain that the city’s interpretation of elements of the “Tenant Justice Act” removes the state’s ability to force the city to build housing if they impose high housing requirements. housing affordability.

These requirements would likely be so high that building new housing would not be financially viable. The result being that developers would look elsewhere to create new housing opportunities.