Prop. 10 isn’t going to help California’s housing mess

California voters will decide on Nov. 6 whether government rent controls would make housing more affordable or even more expensive.

Controlling rent hikes would help keep tenants under shelter and off the street.

But controls also could drive up rent prices by reducing housing supply, it’s contended.

Developers could stop building new apartment complexes, fearing a lousy return on investment. Existing rental units could be converted to condos. “Mom-and-pop” landlords could sell their single-family rentals to owner-occupiers.

Those are the basic arguments for and against Proposition 10, a citizens’ initiative that would allow cities and counties to greatly expand rent controls.

Current law, enacted in 1995, keeps the rent control authority of local government on a state leash, exempting single-family homes, condos, apartments built after 1995 (or before then if a city already had rent control) and, in Los Angeles, on any apartment built after 1978.

Proposition 10 would repeal that law. Cities and counties could regulate rents on any housing. There’s one U.S. Supreme Court caveat: Landlords must be allowed a “fair rate of return.”

But local governments could impose rent controls on single-family houses, condos and apartments. Or not.

California’s housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable in major cities and along the coast. Proposition 10 sponsors say 17 million Californians live in rentals, 7.7 million in single-family homes. About onethird spend roughly half their income on rent. Experts say it shouldn’t be over 30 percent.

Rents go up, tenants can’t pay and they’re evicted. Senior citizens on fixed incomes are especially vulnerable.

“People end up on their friends’ couches,” says Amy Schur, with the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, which is pushing the ballot proposition.

“People are making enormous profits in real estate right now,” she asserts. “We want to stop the rent gouging — stop the people who are greedy and want to charge too much. Do we value limitless profit over people having a roof over their head?

“Is this going to be just a state for the wealthy?”

Schur, a longtime housing activist, says because of escalating rents people “are being forced out of the communities they’ve lived in for decades, where they’re employed and have their social networks. They’re being pushed out too far away” beyond reasonable commutes to work.

Indeed, the housing supply doesn’t meet the demand in much of California.

“We’ve been under supply and not meeting the demand for years,” says Pat Sabelhaus, with the California Council for Affordable Housing, which strongly opposes Proposition 10.

He blames “regulatory impediments” imposed by state and local government for adding years and cost to development costs.

Sabelhaus also notes that Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature abolished local redevelopment agencies in 2014.

“They were putting $4 billion into affordable housing,” he explains. “That money’s gone.”

Those agencies also were putting money into unrelated stuff — some crossing into corruption. Much of the money was shifted to schools. The next governor should focus on revised redevelopment agencies.

Sabelhaus says California should be producing 180,000 housing units a year, but is building only 80,000.

“Rent control will make the problem worse,” he says. “People will take their rental units off the market. And developers are going to run away from areas with rent control. They’re not going to invest because they can’t know what’s going to happen to their investment.”

A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California showed the measure hasn’t caught on with likely voters. It was supported by 36 percent and opposed by 48 percent, with 16 percent undecided. Even among renters, only 43 percent favored it and 51 percent were against.

The opposition side has raised roughly $34 million, three times as much as the proponents.

The chief bankroller of Proposition 10 is Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. He has ponied up $10 million.

Weinstein has funded a few other state and local ballot measures, including an unsuccessful attempt last year, paradoxically, to limit growth in Los Angeles — a city that clearly needs more housing supply.

My view: I’m wary of government controlling prices charged by private enterprise. That’s fine for energy utilities because they’re allowed monopolies. But housing is a wide-open market.

Government should get involved, but directly. Perhaps go back to public housing, only in a more humane fashion than 50 years ago. Maybe more rent subsidies. Streamline building regulations and provide tax incentives.

Just don’t thrust the burden narrowly on developers and landlords, chasing them off when they’re needed more than ever.