"We have seen corporate landlords—who own a larger share of the rental market than ever before—use inflation as an excuse to hike rents and reap excess profits beyond what should be considered fair and reasonable."
This better matches my understanding than OP’s take. It’s not necessarily that certain folks were being disingenuous (though of course with financial matters that’s also common), but more so that rent control is designed to help people closer to the bottom of the financial ladder, and those people are also disenfranchised in other ways, including their results bring unreported or thrown under the rug.
The difference now is that the housing system is so screwed and skewed overall, rent control would likely benefit far more folks than those at the absolute bottom of the financial ladder – that, or the wealth gap is just so large that there’s a huge number of people at the bottom, all roughly equivalent to each other given how rich the rich have become.
This better matches my understanding than OP’s take. It’s not necessarily that certain folks were being disingenuous (though of course with financial matters that’s also common), but more so that rent control is designed to help people closer to the bottom of the financial ladder, and those people are also disenfranchised in other ways, including their results bring unreported or thrown under the rug.
The difference now is that the housing system is so screwed and skewed overall, rent control would likely benefit far more folks than those at the absolute bottom of the financial ladder – that, or the wealth gap is just so large that there’s a huge number of people at the bottom, all roughly equivalent to each other given how rich the rich have become.