Why Rent Control? An Interview with Kshama Sawant
She is always an interesting read
Rent Control, Rent Control! Make Our Cities Affordable!
As housing prices skyrocket nationally and internationally, the idea of rent control is again on the rise. In addition to becoming a central debate in Seattle elections this year, new rent control laws were recently passed in Richmond, California, and in Berlin, Germany.
In 2008, a statewide California proposition to ban rent control was decisively defeated, with over 61% in favor of keeping rent regulation. However, as the demand for rent control becomes louder, so does the real estate industry’s fear-mongering campaign. In order to dispel the myths peddled by developers and the corporate media, we interviewed Kshama Sawant, Socialist Alternative Seattle City Councilmember, who has made rent control a central demand of her reelection campaign.
Why rent control?
Kshama Sawant:
Right now, landlords have the right to raise rents by however much they like: 50%, 100%, or even 200%. People can only take stagnating wages and skyrocketing rents for so long before they fight back. Without the resources and power to control housing supply, communities inevitably are forced to demand regulation over their rising housing costs. Rent control is merely a way of outlawing price gouging and preventing landlords from profiting off the increase in property values driven by real estate speculation and lack of supply. It’s essential to address the existing power imbalance in which landlords and developers have all the control, just as a minimum wage is essential to defend workers from corporate executives who prefer to keep wages low.
more of the interview
http://www.socialistalternative.org/2015/10/15/kshama-sawant-interview-rent-control/