Perspective
Voters Said No in California, but Other States Have Rent Control Battles Looming
Proposition 10 was rejected but rent control is on the agenda in other places across the country. Why? It’s not the affordable housing fix-all people think.
Yesterday voters in California rejected Proposition 10, which would have repealed current restrictions on how much city governments can control or cap rents.
It was a bill that activists succeeded in getting on the ballot and it's no surprise California was a battleground: According to recent HUD data, 54 percent of all California renters are “rent-burdened”—meaning they spend more than a third of their income on rent—and 29 percent are “severely” rent-burdened, meaning they spend more than half of their income on rent. Existing affordable housing programs are simply not producing enough affordable units.