Thank you for writing this excellent review of local efforts related to the housing crisis.

Although I have been a renter since coming to California over 26 years ago, I am firmly against any type of rent control or "rent stabilization" measures because they are always counter productive.

For those who claim they are being mistreated because they are immigrants, there are already laws to deal with discrimination. My wife is an immigrant and I have to say that we have been treated fairly by our agency so far. That being said, rent control would not do anything to prevent discrimination.


I did a lot of research on the topic and provided the Council with a list of the top 20 most expensive cities to rent in, in the US. I spoke about how the list shows that 5 of the top 6 most expensive cities all have rent control (including San Francisco at #1, and San Jose) and that it would be 6 out of 6 if one of the cities had not repealed the rent control ordinance a year or two ago. The list that I gave the Council also provided all the links upon which my facts are based.

Like many people here, I am also struggling to remain here close to my friends, but that will not be possible in the long run. I will be retiring (if I am fortunate enough to keep my job) in about 13 years and at that point I am fairly certain that I will no longer be able to afford to live here so my wife and I are already making plans to move elsewhere at that time (no applause please) :)

With that being the case, why you ask would I of all people be against rent stabilization? The answer is that I have lived in San Francisco twice and neither time did rent control or rent stabilization lower or help with the rents there. When these measures are implemented, what usually happens is that rents spike immediately as the property owners try to compensate for the future revenues that they anticipate losing once the new mandated pricing structure takes effect. This is not out of greed (normally), this is to make sure that they can continue to pay for repairs, upgrades (some of which WILL be mandated by local, state, or federal regulations), unoccupied units and property taxes. They also derive an income that pays for their retirement or perhaps their children's education, medical expenses, etc.

In listening to some of the comments and stories, many of the people seemed to be under the mistaken impression that the City sets or lowers rent prices, or would be able to prevent evictions. A new ordinance might make evictions more difficult and prevent a few, but any owner that is losing money on a property will either sell it, or file for bankruptcy in which case the tenants are likely to be evicted anyway by whomever the new owner is.

Rent control or rent stabilization also locks people into the home or apartment they are currently renting, so if you have say a family of 10 living in a 2 or 3 bedroom apartment, they will never be able to move somewhere else because if they do, they will then pay a market rent which is much higher than the market rent would be without rent control. The reason for this is that rent controlled/stabilized areas have even less available units than before, and therefore competition is increased thereby driving up demand and prices.

Rent control/stabilization would also create increased costs to the city as a new bureaucracy would need to be put in place to handle landlord and tenant complaints or issues related to the new ordinance.

I do not want to be forced out of Mountain View, and if rent control/stabilization was the answer, I would be the first one in line to advocate for it. We are already sharing an rental with two people and so far we have been lucky to be able to remain, but if this policy is implemented, the resulting rent increase might be too much even for our combined incomes.

I suggested 3 possible solutions to the issue at the meeting:

1) Education. This is a high tech/med tech area and people need to pursue higher education in order to increase their earning potential and obtain jobs that allow them to pay the rents in this market

2) More and/or streamlined assistance programs for low and middle income renters that reduce the burden while people are obtaining the necessary education to survive in this area

3) Provide incentives for companies with higher paying jobs to hire unemployed/underemployed local residents.


Market based solutions always work better than command economy solutions. There once was a U.S. President that attempted to set wage and price controls .... his name was Richard Nixon. Is that really the model that we want to emulate?


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View