[emathias]

Isn't rent control being phased out in New York or at least reduced in scope? And I haven't heard anything about it being expanded in San Francisco. If it was so demonstrably beneficial, it seems like the places that had it would be illustrating it's success.

Personally, I'd rather the government directly fund inexpensive housing and manage it via a non-profit than implement rent controls.

The non-profit could be directed to set rents at a self-sustaining level and instead of developers having to build low income housing, could pay into that non-profit.

People will point to the Housing Authority as an example of why that won't work, but the housing authority was subsidized by the government and had other institutional problems that could be addressed in a non-profit charter and regulations about where and how much longer-income housing could be built in a given area to avoid creating slums. This class of housing could have a work requirement, and allow existing CHA units to focus on fully subsidized units.

The idea would be to buffer the impact of gentrification, not to house the indigent. Over the long term, the city could intentionally cycle where the housing is provided, eliminating non-market housing as it's tenants willingly relocated at their own pace, with the goal of allowing renters to stay in the same neighborhood or school district even as market rents rose, but bowing out as the original lower-income residents left. Timed right, the city might even turn a profit on the housing if they bought wisely ahead of gentrification and sold afterwards.

It would compete against small developers to some extent, but the housing would be maintained to code with no included services or amenities (except maybe laundry) so that people would only use them when staying in the area was their true primary goal and risking being priced out wasn't a risk they wanted for any amount of luxury.