Affordable Housing Programs  |  Housing Supply Planning

This briefing paper considers whether rent control is an effective and equitable local strategy to preserve affordable housing. It reviews how state and local approaches to rent control have changed over time and discusses the impact these policies have on developers and landlords, economic opportunity, and racial disparities. It recognizes that economic models have shown rent control to be inefficient, but calls for more qualitative, ethnographic research to better understand the true impact rent control has on providing stability and improving quality of life for residents.