By Michael Weinstein
California’s number one problem—housing—has never been worse. With each passing day and each negative headline, our state’s housing affordability and homelessness crises become more and more critical.
California cities are now the worst in the country for first-time homebuyers, while even people who live in “affordable housing” are seeing their rents spike with no respite in sight. With Los Angeles looking to follow in Paris’ footsteps for the 2028 Olympics, visitors can expect to be greeted by tens of thousands of Californians living in the streets while their neighbors live in luxury. All the while, the state’s housing crisis is putting people at grave risk of future climate disasters.
Why can’t we agree on a solution? Why can’t we even agree that there is a problem?
First and foremost, we need to look at housing through a lens of “equilibrium” based on fairness and justice. What does this mean?
Shelter is the most important institution in our lives, so equilibrium between the needs of the commercial real estate market and human rights is essential. The debate over renters’ rights is polarized between outsized profits and the thesis that rent control will kill housing. But such industry-driven arguments are based on self-serving narratives, not facts.
Equilibrium means a healthy community that supplies housing across the entire income structure. A sick community only makes housing affordable to the upper crust and the very impoverished. That scenario, if sustained, is a death spiral.
We soon forget that, as recently as the 1950s, Detroit was the wealthiest city in the world. Then it turned into a ghost town. Despite wealthy suburbs like Grosse Pointe, Detroit losing its middle-class tax base caused the bottom to drop out.
That is already happening in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Having half the renters pay more than 30 percent of their income on rent is unsustainable. The majority of renters are in a permanent state of deficit with little hope of ever climbing out of it.
Meanwhile, the billionaire corporate real estate cartel is fat and happy. Steven Schwartzman, CEO of Blackstone, sits astride his $40 billion fortune and squeezes renters harder every day. There is no more blood in that stone. It is no wonder that a million people have fled our state.
California is a state of mind: A dream of freedom, equality, and opportunity. However, we are sacrificing these values to the greed of billionaire corporate landlords who have a stranglehold over our politicians.
Weigh the thought of whether the status quo is better or worse than our current decline. Bought-and-paid-for academics and PR people have demonized rent control as a communist plot. However, rent control in the United States has been around since 1919 and fits very appropriately into the framework of utility regulation. Is it sensible that the gas and electric company must apply to raise your rates, but your landlord can do most anything?
Come November 5th in California, voters will have to decide if taking the chance of allowing cities to expand rent control is more advantageous than our current downward slide. It is a chance that we need to take. California needs solutions now, not later, and limiting rent increases is the best place to start.
This November, the only solution for California is justice for renters. There is no other choice when our housing problem leaves so many powerless.
Michael Weinstein is the president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global HIV/AIDS organization, and AHF’s Healthy Housing Foundation.
