California, not content to let a good disaster go to waste, intends to make its housing crisis even worse by imposing rent control and other rules on landlords across the state.
Naturally, liberal Democrats introducing the new potential laws are proclaiming that it will benefit poor tenants. However, even a quick glance at the evidence makes it apparent that it is the poor who will actually suffer the most from the new legislation.
Rent control is hardly a new concept. It has been tried in various liberal bastions such as New York City and San Francisco. The results are always the same. Many landlords opt to allow their homes and apartments to remain vacant rather than risk renting them out to people from a poor or lower middle-class background. Developers lose interest in building new homes, apartments and condos because investors aren’t interested in purchasing housing units to rent out. Supply of available housing actually goes down, which means that, instead of being forced to rent an expensive home or apartment, poor people find themselves without any options and are thus rendered homeless.
Alternatively, they may be forced to cram into a small home or apartment with many other people in the same unfortunate situation. What is more, even those who are able to rent a housing unit suffer because cash-strapped landlords who can no longer raise enough money to maintain their homes will not be able to upgrade the housing units — or even handle important repair jobs in a timely manner.
Unfortunately, California legislators don’t seem to mind ignoring the cold, hard facts. They also don’t seem to mind overriding the will of the people who recently voted against a proposition to eliminate California’s current restrictions on rent control. Instead, Democrat politicians in the state have introduced a bill that is not quite as far-reaching as the failed proposition but still Draconian enough to do permanent damage to the rental market.
The new bill would forbid landlords from raising rent above a certain level. It would also allow cities and counties to lower the maximum rent allowance even further if so desired. To make matters even worse, California legislators want to not only impose rent controls, but also make it difficult for landlords to evict tenants.
If the new bill passes, landlords would only be able to evict tenants for certain limited reasons such as failing to pay rent, certain types of bad behavior or, in some cases, if the landlord wants to sell or move back into the apartment and the lease allows for such a decision. Sadly, it seems that California’s new anti-landlord laws will pass the state House of Representatives and state Senate, after which Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom will sign them into law.
As the Democratic Party moves further to the left, many liberals are embracing the common misconception that people who have money and property are responsible to “share their wealth” with those who lack. However, history has clearly shown that socialism never works.
Landlords will not generously allow risky tenants to inhabit their homes or apartments at a subsidized price. Instead, the landlords will likely sell their homes or apartments, forbid certain types of tenants from renting their properties, or even allow them to sit vacant. As a result, those who are struggling with high rental costs will face even more problems as demand for rental properties makes it nearly impossible to find a place to live.
California could solve its housing crisis fairly easily by getting rid of policies that limit development of available land that could be used to build affordable, livable housing units. The state could also give developers incentives to build homes in or around its large cities by getting rid of costly fees and useless regulations meant to fight so-called “climate change”.
Instead, state politicians have chosen to pander to certain special interest groups to the detriment of hard-working, ordinary people who are struggling to find a decent place to live at a reasonable price.
~ Conservative Zone
