Andrew Mikula
As the Boston mayoral race heats up, housing remains a major issue of contention between the two candidates, incumbent Mayor Michelle Wu and philanthropist Josh Kraft. But there’s at least one facet of the housing policy debate they both seem to agree on: The need to implement some form of rent control in Boston.
Rent control, which places price limits on residential rents or annual increases in residential rents, has made something of a political comeback following a 27 percent rise in rents in five years in Greater Boston. Although Mr. Kraft’s proposal bears little resemblance to traditional rent control, his decision to brand it as such shows the idea’s prevalence.
Not only has rent control received significant attention in media publications and political organizing circles, but such policies were adopted statewide in Oregon and California in 2019. Rent control is also popular with the public, with some pollsters finding that upwards of 70 percent of voters support allowing localities to implement rent control.
At the same time, our new research published by the Pioneer Institute makes clear the risks of adopting rent control. Decades of academic literature have shown that, while rent control can lower rental housing costs in rent-controlled buildings, it also empirically worsens housing quality, reduces new and existing housing supply, raises rents among non-rent-controlled housing and distorts residential location choices, ultimately worsening affordability.
In 2024, when economists were asked whether “capping annual rent increases by corporate landlords at 5%” would “make middle-income Americans substantially better off over the next ten years,” only 2 percent agreed, while 74 percent disagreed.
Aidan Enright
Hot Market Inspires Calls for Curbs
Despite this, many tenant advocates continue to support rent control measures, largely because of the disparate timing of rent control’s positive and negative effects.
Ultimately, many rent control proponents are most concerned with “ensuring housing stability” for low-income, minority, and immigrant populations. From this perspective, a major benefit of rent control is that it takes effect right away for tenants who are falling behind on rent or facing eviction, not after a years-long construction phase and/or harrowing application process.
With rents rising so rapidly in the last few years, rent control proponents have made the case that the immediate needs of struggling renters should take precedence over a purportedly vague promise of widespread affordability in the distant future.
It’s certainly true that “building our way out” of the housing crisis will take too long to be impactful for those suffering now. But when short-term stabilization efforts undermine the incentive to build and own rental units, such units become increasingly unavailable while upward pressure on market prices remains, harming tenants and communities long-term.
Policymakers should pursue housing affordability solutions for low-income and vulnerable households that do not inherently discourage new construction or investment. One of these solutions is expanding rental vouchers.
The Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program, or MRVP, allows tenants to apply for vouchers that certify that a local or regional housing authority will pay part of that tenant’s rent. But according to MassINC, the 10,700 households with MRVP vouchers are dwarfed by the program’s 168,000-name waiting list, which in turn fails to include all of the households eligible for a voucher.
MRVP Helps Renters and Landlords Alike
In theory, scaling up such a voucher program to provide universal coverage for low-income households would more directly address housing needs among vulnerable populations than a broad-based policy like rent control. Many landlords also like the guaranteed payments, lower turnover rates and larger pool of potential applicants that come with rental voucher programs.
While a universal voucher program would cost at least several billion dollars, temporarily scaling up funding while targeting vouchers to those for whom similar programs have had a proven impact could be attainable without breaking the bank.
Academic research has shown that “housing vouchers which (1) require families to move to lower-poverty areas and (2) are targeted at low-income families with young children can reduce the intergenerational persistence of poverty and ultimately save the government money.”
Absent a full overhaul, tenant advocates have repeatedly called for state lawmakers to allocate more funds to MRVP and even codify the program in state law, rather than keeping it as a discretionary budget item.
Expanding MRVP wouldn’t obviate the need for short-term emergency rental subsidies, such as those of Residential Assistance for Families in Transition (RAFT), and absent a broader increase in housing production it may increase market prices by stoking demand. But it would serve as a preventative measure against the kind of precarious living situations on which calls for rent control rest, improving financial stability for both tenants and landlords and providing necessary relief before new housing can be built.
Policies like rent control will likely remain a hot topic of conversation for the foreseeable future, especially in renter-heavy enclaves like Boston. But at some point, industry professionals who recognize rent control for its severe long-term consequences need to rally around an alternative set of policies that meets the immediate needs of tenants vulnerable to displacement.
Reforms that maximize the impact of programs like the Massachusetts Rental Voucher Program would be a good place to start.
Andrew Mikula is a senior housing fellow and Aidan Enright is the economic research associate at the Pioneer Institute.
