What Happens if Prop 98 Passes: Cambridge After Rent Control was Wiped Out Overnight
Gilda Haas on May 16 2008 at 8:08 am | Filed under: Opinion, Research
Designed to protect low- and moderate-income renters from the rising costs of housing, rent control policies have triggered such fierce industry opposition that 31 states have passed laws prohibiting their local communities from even trying it.
Yet none of those places took the bold step that Massachusetts did: voting out the policies almost overnight.
As a result, Cambridge offers an unprecedented glimpse into the public policy trade-offs that cities make as they attempt to balance protections for the poor against economic growth and development.
What Cambridge has found is that … “The economic boon to the city has been sizable and sustained, but it has come, in part, because wealthier people moved in and the less fortunate moved out. Rents, according to a recent study, have climbed dramatically, doubling in four years’ time from an average of $500 a month to more than $1,000. So far, 38 percent of the 16,000 families who lived in rent-controlled units have been forced to find other housing, and most of those left the city entirely. About 40 percent of all remaining Cambridge tenants pay more than a third of their income for rent, a level of housing payments considered too high under most federal and state guidelines.” (Washington Post, September 19, 1998)