politicians worldwide, nationwide, and here should be protecting us from greed... and not doing so at their own peril. full stop

There is a state limit on how much real estate taxes can go up per year so this seems fair.

Too little, too late. Rents have already spiked beyond what the labor class can afford, and they're not going back down without more radical action. I believe building out public housing would be the only way to truly get things back under control. Of course, I also don't trust our government to build anything decent nor keep it funded enough for it to not turn into a nightmare eventually.

[deleted]

Would have been smart to introduce inclusionary zoning before they approved a bunch of market rate units. Instead they greenlit a bunch of developments then started talking about it.

Yup. Either way, the market isn't going back down, so the only 2 realistic options for those getting priced out in Worcester would be to continue raising minimum wage and to directly invest in low income housing. We're never going to catch up to demand enough to stop the market from going up here, and we need housing for low income workers now.

I mean... No, it is not too late. Yes, things are bad now but the point is about preventing it from getting worse, right? And I think it's supposed to get worse.

I encourage everyone to read more on the historic economic outcomes of places that implement rent control policys.

This is the absolutely worst way to handle a housing crisis, it's populism gone off the rails. The most basic understanding of economics shows why this is a bad idea.

Every area that has tried this has made the issue worse. Look how San Francisco is doing....

This is purely a supply issue. The amount of people living here isn't changing, in fact it's going up. The only way to bring down housing prices is to increase housing. Artificially distorting the marking makes everything worse. Rent control does nothing to help increase housing supply and in fact makes it worse at is disincentivizes investment in new housing.

wouldn’t need rent control if we stopped privatizing housing

Yeah, a well designed rent-control policy could theoretically do a lot to stabilize a market like Worcester's, the problem is actually designing one. Government subsidies are a more effective solution.

>in fact makes it worse at is disincentivizes investment in new housing.

Landlords will also just take existing units off the market and convert them into units exempt from rent control which is part of what happened in San Francisco.

a lot of people don't look into these kind of things and just follow their gut. rent control is an easy sell to someone with only a surface understanding of how housing economics work.

i have already stated on here my suggestion for alleviating the housing problem, and that is allowing new triple/quad deckers to be built to modern code with modern amenities. add housing and increase upward mobility in one fell swoop. stipulate that they only be built and bought by local residents. get corporations and low bidders with deep pockets out of our housing market.

instead I'm afraid we will end up with some illogical solution that appeals to emotion to get support. rent control is one such idea.