Why is it that in a state best known for Hollywood, Disneyland, and Silicon Valley, rates of homelessness and poverty are the highest in the nation? What makes California’s housing so expensive? One policy that contributes to the problem is “rent control.”

Also read: COUNTERPOINT | We must address affordable housing

What makes rent control problematic and why should we in Colorado worry about it? Democrats in the Colorado House of Representatives just passed HB 21-1117. It would allow blue cities like Boulder, Denver, and Pueblo to impose rent controls on local landlords, particularly large apartment complexes whether already built or in-planning.

It’s important to understand the current climate of Colorado’s housing and rental markets. For years cities in the Denver Metro area have focused on zoning, regulation, and negotiation to ensure there would be more low-income and, as it turns out, luxury housing. Those in the middle are getting squeezed. Facing high demand and relatively low supply, the price of renting has gone up. This means fewer affordable options for those who truly need it. One solution to this “supply” problem would be to encourage investors to build housing, and make sure they have an expedited path to do so. Builders would happily move forward quickly if they faced less red-tape.

But that’s not the approach favored by House Democrats. They prefer rent control. How’s that been working? A 2019 report Stanford University in 2019 examined its effects in San Francisco. According to the study, “Landlords treated by rent control reduce rental housing supplies by 15% by selling to owner-occupants and redeveloping buildings. Thus, while rent control prevents displacement of incumbent renters in the short run, the lost rental housing supply likely drove up market rents in the long run, ultimately undermining the goals of the law.”

To be sure, a few people benefit when a local government won’t allow rent to increase. But the short-term benefit for the few comes at the expense of a larger, and longer-lasting, benefit for the many. In rent-controlled cities, would-be renters wait in line to become one of the lucky few to win the lottery (literally) and get one of the designated rent-controlled units. Current programs that offer reduced rent typically have waitlists that are years long, and it’s not hard to imagine a similar process unfolding in Colorado. Studies also report landlords unable to increase rent often choose to forego maintenance, meaning the prized rent-controlled unit ends up not being so valuable, or desirable after all.

In 2018, the Brookings Institute (a left-leaning public policy organization) found that, “While rent control appears to help current tenants in the short run, in the long run, it decreases affordability, fuels gentrification, and creates negative spillovers on the surrounding neighborhood.” Put another way, the imposition of rent-control ultimately reduces the supply of affordable housing and lowers the overall value of the rent-controlled unit. When property values are reduced, so are the revenues from property taxes that fund our schools.

What begins as a humane instinct to create affordable housing thus turns into empty virtue-signaling. Rent control reduces the availability of affordable housing and lowers the value of existing housing.

In dozens of large and small ways progressive policies make life less affordable, especially for the poor and middle class. But some appear determined to follow a path strewn with good intentions and disastrous results. Let’s avoid this one. Let’s learn from the experience New York and California stop HB 1117 from getting to the governor’s desk.

Kevin Van Winkle, R-Highlands Ranch, represents District 43 in the Colorado state House.