Posted on 09/11/2019 6:28:05 PM PDT by karpov
California lawmakers approved a statewide rent cap on Wednesday covering millions of tenants, the biggest step yet in a surge of initiatives to address an affordable-housing crunch nationwide.
The bill limits annual rent increases to 5 percent after inflation and offers new barriers to eviction, providing a bit of housing security in a state with the nation’s highest housing prices and a swelling homeless population.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who has made tenant protection a priority in his first year in office, led negotiations to strengthen the legislation. He has said he would sign the bill, approved as part of a flurry of activity in the final week of the legislative session.
The measure, affecting an estimated eight million residents of rental homes and apartments, was heavily pushed by tenants’ groups. In an indication of how dire housing problems have become, it also garnered the support of the California Business Roundtable, representing leading employers, and was unopposed by the state’s biggest landlords’ group.
That dynamic reflected a momentous political swing. For a quarter-century, California law has sharply curbed the ability of localities to impose rent control. Now, the state itself has taken that step.
“The housing crisis is reaching every corner of America, where you’re seeing high home prices, high rents, evictions and homelessness that we’re all struggling to grapple with,” said Assemblyman David Chiu, a San Francisco Democrat who was the bill’s author. “Protecting tenants is a critical and obvious component of any strategy to address this.”
A greater share of households nationwide are renting than at any point in a half-century. But only four states — California, Maryland, New Jersey and New York — have localities with some type of rent control, along with the District of Columbia.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Marxist-style controls; Marxist results to follow.
They want to control where and how you live, what you eat, where you work, how you get educated....everything.
No incentive to keep a rental property now. That’ll really fix the problem. Or not.
No housing crisis in Arizona. But then, free markets tend to have that effect.
California can go to hell as far as I’m concerned. No sympathy for the disaster their voters are creating. This kills future housing development and makes the situation worse.
Would we have a Housing Crisis or Jobs Crisis if we deported the 5 Million Illegal Aliens in California??
Plank #1 of the Communist Manifesto: Abolition of private property rights.
Looking at the rent limitations I see nothing terrible other than it ain’t the money. It ain’t the homeless. It ain’t protecting tenants. It’s blatant, brazen control. Just another grab of power by Democrats. They are setting up a basis to grab even more.
Californians have a habit of letting the damned Democrats have their way with us. California used to be the fourth largest economy in the World. The Democrats have succeeded in making us now the ninth largest economy in the World. It’s time Californians get off their butts, and start to fight for what’s right.
Every apartment owner in the state is looking to sell, at a bargain price.
The buyers will be condo associations.
Rental property will dry up overnight.
Government orders crops burned to ease food shortages.
Government orders refineries closed to clamp down on rising gasoline prices.
People elect democrats to solve problems.
Now California’s Democrat rulers only have to raise their welfare budgets for illegals and homeless by 5% each year.
Have you priced a house in Kali-Fornia lately?
Best have a wheelbarrow full of cash!
Rent control has worked so well in the rest of the world. /s
That has worked just so well in NYC.
Idiots.
Wonder if the sidewalk outside your business can be considered a “rental unit”?
“...spare bedrooms?”
Ain’t no spare bedrooms in L.A. & S.F.
A lot of landlords are turning apartments into AirBnB, dorms, & “hostels.”
They’re putting as many as 4 or 6 BUNK BEDS in each bedroom.
You get a bunk with shared bathroom & kitchen for what a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment cost last year— $1000-2000.
Some have 20-40 tenants crammed in.
A private 1 or 2 BR now goes for $3000 up.
Employed people are being priced out of apartments where they’ve lived for years, having already paid as much rent as would have already paid off a condo anywhere else.
They’re evicted, & made homeless by predatory landlords who enter their names in the database of evicted, virtually guaranteeing rejection for any future housing.
These employed homeless continue struggling to keep jobs which cannot cover their rent, even if they were able to save 1st, last, & deposit.
I’ve heard of people bedding down in their office cubicles.
Others wander nights, looking for a place to sleep, returning to jobs in the a.m. where their coworkers are unaware.
Eventually, weeks of sleep deprivation results in mental deterioration, the boss notices, and they’re fired.
the worst thing you can do in this state is rent control. the reason that most people cant rent is that they are horrible risk to rent to...all that rent control is going to do is remove all the houses rented out by independent owners that don’t use a rental agency...you will see a lot of low end rentals leave the market totally because the risk and reward is to much....watch the homeless problem get worse because of this.
There is nothing you can do by giving the politicians money for reelection. They run unopposed in most cases so calling and complaining gets you nowhere except on the harass list.
These people are really stupid. How many times do they have to learn this lesson? They should read Thomas Sowell. He has written a lot about the fallacies of rent control.
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