Governments can issue muni bonds to build housing if private developers will not or cannot, and use eminent domain to acquire rental real estate not being maintained to living standards codified in statue.
I personally think the Vienna model is ideal.
https://www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/economic-growth/regio...
> Governments can issue muni bonds to build housing if private developers will not or cannot, and use eminent domain to acquire rental real estate not being maintained to living standards codified in statue.
With what money? LA was recently downgraded [1] and adding poor people who need social care harms not helps the city budget.
[1] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-04-26/city-of-...
The risk of rent control is that it slows the growth of supply, or even contracts the supply. There is no right to profit, but there's also no obligation to build more housing or to continue renting it (rather than tearing it down for a parking lot with lower risk and better returns for example).
That's why some consider rent controls a bad idea. It stabilizes the current pricing, at the cost of potentially making the problem much worse in the future. Not even just for newcomers, it can disincentivize landlords doing repairs and make moving out impossible for current residents.
It probably also incentivizes anti-patterns like having tenants pay for electricity and refusing to make efficiency upgrades. If the landlord won't recoup the investment for high efficiency windows, just leave the 60 year old ones in there and make electricity costs the tenant's problem.