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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Monday, February 23, 2015

Rent Control Hurts the Poor

Jason Stapleton

If you thought rent control helped to provide affordable housing to the most needy and deserving among us you need a lesson in basic economics. That sounds a little harsh but one need look no further than New York City to see the damage rent control has done to low income real estate there. Since January 2014 zombie foreclosures jumped 54 percent — to 16,777. Zombie foreclosures refers to homes abandoned by the owner or landlord and the banks and are now stuck in limbo…….When you institute rent control, housing shortages emerge….look at New York, Santa Monica, Berkeley and San Francisco all who have strict rent control laws…..you find sky high real estate prices, above average homelessness and a massive shortage of housing…….like most progressive ideas and State meddling the result more often than not hurts the very people they intended to help.

When you mess with the free market and choose to arbitrarily set price floors and ceilings you get shortages. I don’t care whether it’s the cost of rent, a pound of pork or the minimum wage. Any attempt to control or fix prices will have an adverse effect on our economy. Wake up politicians! You are hurting the very people you aim to help. Let the free market do its job and give each of us the freedom to make our own decisions regarding what we will pay and sell our products for……To Read More…..

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