After fleeing for their lives from Vietnam to America in 1975, my parents and older sister began their new life in the United States. With $20 in their pockets, they moved into housing projects at 12th and Osage, my first home, and thanks to many years of hard work, determination and saving every penny they were eventually able to achieve homeownership. My family’s personal journey is why I’m so passionate about these issues today and why I am determined to help people from all backgrounds and situations achieve their homeownership dreams.

For a lot of communities, especially refugees, people coming from other countries, and underserved communities, home ownership is forever changing generations. Building generational wealth is so powerful, and I don’t believe most people realize just how important it is. When we’re helping people into homes, it’s impacting families for generations to come. That is why this work is so important.

Like so many other cities and states across America, our state has a housing crisis when it comes to access and affordability – owned or rented – and we’re at a critical juncture to identify and implement much-needed solutions to protect the economic vitality and housing future of our state and its residents.

That said, proposed “rent control” solutions are simply not the answer. For more than 40 years Colorado law has prohibited local governments from enacting rent control ordinances – a recognition of the damage rent control can do to available housing and the negative impact one local government’s housing policy can have on neighboring communities. As Coloradans, we know all too well you can’t fix the costs for housing – you can’t fix the price, the property tax, the maintenance, the energy costs or anything else. The fiscal responsibility to maintain a property remains whether you’re living in that home or renting it out. Trying to fix one component of that cost equation only creates a negative ripple effect across the entire housing market.

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Following last year’s failed effort by Colorado lawmakers to pass a repeal of the prohibition on local rent control, we now stand at the doorstep of the 2024 legislative session and what will certainly be a reignited conversation and effort to impose rent control. It’s important we step back and take a thoughtful look at the well-studied, well-documented failures of similar policies in communities across the country and not make the same mistakes.

Rent control measures not only fail to improve the financial situation of most renters but also shift the burden of economic difficulties, inflation and other costs onto the housing provider with no counterbalance. This drives “mom and pop” housing providers out of communities, stalls new development, reduces the supply of rental units, lowers property values and, over time, harms that area’s economy. “Mom and pop” housing providers typically own a rental property as a means for savings and investments for their family’s future.

Rent control has failed everywhere it’s been tried. This fact cannot be argued.

A rental cap leads housing providers to sell their rental properties to owner occupants so that housing providers can still earn market price for their real estate. Rent control leads to decay of the rental housing stock; housing provider may not invest in maintenance because they can’t recoup their investment by raising rents.

Moreover, some jurisdictions would adopt rent control while others would not. This would place an unfair housing burden on local jurisdictions adjacent to those who adopt rent control because people will look for available housing elsewhere. Though rent control may provide some relief to current tenants, in the long run it decreases affordability, fuels gentrification and creates negative spillovers on the surrounding neighborhood. The ripple effect leads to transportation and workforce inefficiencies, areas already in need of long-term solutions as well.

We can pursue better policy options available right now to address the common denominator of the housing shortage. We must increase the housing supply by removing regulatory barriers that only serve to limit how many structures are built and delay the needs of our communities. We should explore ways to incentivize local jurisdictions to relax overly restrictive zoning codes and permitting and invite the necessary investment to build housing that meets the needs of the entire spectrum.

Although well-intentioned by bill supporters and several state lawmakers, the emotional, economically flawed, unfounded passage of such a bill would result in a huge detriment to Colorado’s housing market creating a patchwork of “rent stabilization” ordinances throughout the state. All of this creates unintended, adverse outcomes by capping the ability for housing providers to set rent.

So, as we stand here at the doorstep of a new year, a new lawmaking session at our state Capitol, we know rent control is not the answer, and we know Colorado doesn’t have rental units to lose. We know through experience and results of past efforts the answer to solving our affordability crisis is increasing the supply, as that is the single greatest way to achieve more affordable housing for all Coloradans.

My family’s journey and opportunities to create generational wealth through homeownership were the result of hard work, perseverance and sound policies that created diverse ranges of housing inventory. It’s a formula that has worked for generations and will work for generations to come.

Now is the time to focus on other policy solutions that work. We need to remove regulatory barriers that serve to limit how many structures are built and delay the units our communities need. We need to incentivize local jurisdictions to relax restrictive zoning codes and create real solutions for housing affordability by focusing on the outcomes and tools, including ones like Proposition 123, to increase our state’s housing supply. Let’s not be the next failed rent control case study.

Lisa Nguyen is president of the Greater Denver Chapter of the Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA); vice chair for the National AREAA Affordable Housing Task Force; chair for the Denver Metro Association of REALTORS (DMAR) Diversity Alliance Committee, and DMAR treasurer.