“The LIHTC program is the federal government’s most successful tool to construct and rehabilitate housing for low- and moderate-income households,” MBA president and CEO Bob Broeksmit said in a statement. “If the administration imposes unworkable rent caps on LIHTC programs, it will severely suppress – if not kill – the program. Such a move is puzzling and contradicts many of the administration’s other efforts to increase affordable rental housing.”
Broeksmit argued the proposed rent control policy would prove disastrous, citing the current situation in St. Paul, Minn., compared to neighboring Minneapolis as a “perfect example of rent control’s disastrous consequences.”
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“Rent control has consistently proven to be a failed policy that discourages new construction, distorts market pricing, and leads to a degradation of the quality of rental housing – the exact opposite of what is currently needed in markets throughout the country,” he said. “Now is not the time to repeat a policy widely recognized as a failure at the local, national, and global level by nearly every economist.”
The MBA chief contends increasing affordable rental supply, not rent control, is the best way to solve the ongoing affordability crisis impacting markets nationwide.
Source: mpamag.com