*President Joe Biden plans to propose a 5% cap on annual rent increases for tenants of landlords to address housing affordability.
According to The Associated Press, the proposal, set to be unveiled during his visit to Nevada, comes amidst rising housing costs contributing to inflation. However, its enactment hinges on Democratic control of Congress, with many policymakers advocating for increased construction and regulatory changes as more effective solutions to curb housing expenses.
During Thursday’s NATO news conference, Biden attributed inflation to companies seeking to maximize profits following the pandemic.
“It’s time things get back in order a little bit,” Biden said. “If I’m reelected, we’re going to make sure that rents are kept at 5% increase.”
The proposal would target landlords who own 50 or more units, excluding units not yet constructed from the rent increase cap.
The AP writes, “The median national rent was $1,411 a month in June, up from roughly $1,150 in early 2021 when Biden became president, according to Apartment List.”
NPR reports that housing is unaffordable for half of all U.S. renters, citing the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies.
“We actually saw increases across every single income category that we look at, which sort of surprised us,” said Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a senior research associate with the center and lead author of its recent housing report.
The report states, “Climbing rents in recent years propelled US cost burdens to staggering new heights: in 2022, half of all US renters were cost-burdened. This all-time high of 22.4 million renter households spent more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities. And while rental markets are finally cooling, evictions have risen, the country is seeing the highest homelessness counts on record, and the need for rental assistance is greater than ever.”
“So you might not be living in as good of a neighborhood. You might be commuting farther. You might be sacrificing the quality of your school system,” said Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a senior research associate with the center and the report’s lead author. “And often what we’re seeing is that even when people are attempting to make these trade-offs, they still end up paying too much for housing.”
Affordable housing advocates noted that Biden’s proposal, if implemented earlier, could have decreased evictions and homelessness.
“The recent unprecedented increases in homelessness in communities across the country are the result of those equally unprecedented — and unjustified — rent hikes of a couple years ago,” said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, per The AP. “Had such protections against rent gouging been in place then, many families could have avoided homelessness and stayed stably housed.”
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