No on Proposition 10, the wrong fix for California’s housing crisis
Proposition 10 is a fine example of chasing a disaster with a catastrophe.
The disaster is the housing crisis in California. The escalation of home prices and rents has far outpaced wage growth, helping to give California the nation’s highest poverty rate when adjusted for the cost of living.
The catastrophe is Prop. 10, the “Local Rent Control Initiative.”
Proposition 10 would repeal the 1995 Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which prohibits local governments from enacting new rent control ordinances. The law also prohibits rent control on single-family homes and condominiums, and it guarantees “vacancy decontrol,” the right of property owners to raise the rent for new tenants in a rent-controlled building when the former tenants move out.
