Rent control and housing assistance : the US experience

But such a shift leaves open the question of public responsibility for low-income tenants who cannot afford market rents. In the United States, we have been dealing with that issue in various ways for more than 60 years. This paper examines the lessons we have learned--and those we have not learned. The paper reviews the experience of the U.S. market economy with two kinds of government policies intended to help renters cope with perceived shortages of affordable housing. One line of policy entails administered prices for rental housing services; the other entails financial assistance to builders, owners, or occupants of rental dwellings. These topics do not exhaust the possibilities of housing policy, but were chosen because they are immediately pertinent to choices facing the government of the Czech Republic. As rental housing is privatized, market forces are pushing rents up, much to the distress of tenants whose rents heretofore been fixed in nominal monetary units and whose housing costs have been heavily subsidized from the public treasury. (Author abstract)