Why Use it?

Rent control maintains the affordability of existing housing stock as reinvestment occurs, stabilizing existing tenants so that they, too, will benefit from improved neighborhoods, along with landlords, developers, and new residents.

Renters are particularly vulnerable to displacement in times of gentrification. In disinvested communities, rents are often low due to poor housing stock. When reinvestment occurs, landlords often sell their property or significantly increase rents to benefit from the changing market. In either case, tenants with modest incomes are displaced.

Additional benefits from using this tool include:

• Maintenance of decent, affordable housing. One of the goals of rent control is to provide affordable housing in good condition. Rent control facilitates this by providing landlords with incentives to make improvements on their property, denying rent increases to landlords who are not in compliance with health and safety codes and reducing rents when landlords cut back on existing services.
• Enhanced capacity of community members to advocate for policies that foster diverse, stable, mixed-income communities. Community organizing in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Baltimore, Maryland has resulted in permanent citywide tenant and housing organizations to address future issues.

Beyond considering rent control as a new tool, communities that already have rent control must be vigilant in defending it. In Massachusetts, the cities of Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge had rent control until 1994, when it was abolished through a public referendum. Following the end of rent control, rents in gentrifying neighborhoods increased from 50-100 percent, displacing thousands of local residents and exacerbating the existing affordability crisis.