[epistasis]

Rent control won't help the striking grad students, though, since they are here for a short time. Rent control is for giving ownership-lite to people.

The only thing that helps graduate students is in the short term a COLA so they can survive, and in the longer term far far more housing so that there is enough to go around.

The prices are the symptom of the underlying problem. The price controlled stock in Santa Cruz is miniscule, and the lines so long that nobody who lives here less than a decade ever has a hope of getting a price-controlled unit.

Unless we address the shortage, we will have one of high prices, long lines, or lotteries. None of these are acceptable solutions for students. (Or really anyone, for that matter. We have to stop trying to exclude people and finally welcome them.)

[kaikai]

That’s not true, and I can think of several examples where rent control would help grad students:

Grad students often live in Santa Cruz long term. I know multiple people in Santa Cruz who went back to school for higher degrees, and kept their same housing.

Even students who come from out of town still live there for the duration of their program, which can be 6 years. The rental market changes fast, and rent control for those 6 years would have an impact.

Many grad students live with other students, so the same lease can carry over as long as a leaseholder stays. I lived in one house that had kept the same lease going for over 15 years. That might get harder with rent control in place, but our rent was still comparatively cheap because we’d been there for so long.

Regardless of whether it helps grad students survive, it helps the people who live in Santa Cruz long term. I eventually left because I couldn’t afford to live and work there, and might not have had to make that choice if rent prices hadn’t gone through the roof.

[kelnos]

Rent control is a short-term band-aid, and yet people seem to put it in place as a long-term solution. It's not. The long-term solution is to build more. Rent control just distorts the market, makes it hard for people to move if they want to, and makes non-rent-controlled units more expensive.

Rent control can help stop the bleeding while building catches up with demand, but it's ultimately a negative over the long term.

[epistasis]

I'm all for rent control, but we need to be realistic about what it solves, which is not much at all for grad students.

Already, even market rate housing has massive lines. Trying to grab anything off of Craig's List is nearly futile, as any new postings will overflow the lister's voicemail box.

Life in Santa Cruz is not like it was 10 years ago, it's far far more difficult to find housing, even with plentiful money.

Rent control, while a good thing that should define its be done, is not a solution to the problems of newcomers, and is not meant to help newcomers. It's meant to let people hold on, not fix the systemic problems with housing austerity.