By Robbie Sequeira, Stateline.org

With rents soaring since the COVID-19 pandemic tightened the housing supply, more local governments are considering rent control to keep increases in check and, ideally, protect struggling tenants whose incomes haven’t kept pace.

At the same time, some states are enacting measures to prohibit cities from adopting rent control, a policy that has long divided economists and housing experts.

Some policy analysts say restrictions exacerbate the housing crunch by keeping tenants in place longer than they’d otherwise stay. And some research has raised questions about whether the true beneficiaries are renters with low incomes or those with high incomes.

Rent regulation policies — known as rent control or rent stabilization — dictate how often and by how much a landlord can increase rents. More than 200 local governments have a rent control policy in place, according to the National Apartment Association, an industry group.

More local governments are wor..

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