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I'm a small mom and pop housing provider in Berkeley subject to local rent control. While I appreciate the stability that rent control provides existing tenants, I think that it is at the expense of future tenants as the existence of government controls tend to squash development which keeps supply low and puts upward pressure on prices. I think that the fact that some of the highest rents can be found in cities with the strictest rent controls proves that rent control ultimately backfires by discouraging developers. Rent control is ultimately unfair as it forces housing providers to shoulder the costs of a societal problem that should be borne by society as a whole--why should single family homeowners get a free ride in this equation? Rather than punish owners who elect to rent out their property a better approach would be to tax corporate profits and/or ALL property owners or tax payers and use them to subsidize rent payments. This would directly tie economic activity to the creation of housing, allow tenants to move without losing their coveted rent-controlled unit, and more fairly spread the cost burden across all of society. Rents are purely reflective of a supply-demand equation and if you constrain supply you will drive up demand. We need solutions that do not constrain the supply and unfortunately rent control does just that. Let's be more creative!