More homes. Fair rules.

What responsible renting means

Renting should be a good way to live, not a gamble. Responsible renting asks something of everyone involved: renters, landlords, builders, and government.

Safe homes

Every rental meets health and safety code, and local governments find problems through inspection instead of waiting for a complaint.

Stable homes

Rent increases people can plan around, and evictions only for a real reason.

Enough homes

Communities that build enough housing that renters have real choices and landlords compete for tenants.

Fair rules

Clear, proportionate requirements that responsible landlords, including small owners and nonprofits, can follow, and real penalties for the ones who don’t.

Policy that gets checked

Know what a program costs and what it does before adopting it, and fix it when the results fall short.

Good intentions need good design

No one should live with black mold, an illegal rent hike, or a landlord who retaliates. Progressives agree on that. The test of a housing policy is what it does for the people it’s meant to help.

• The country is short on homes

  Most estimates put the national shortfall at roughly 4 to 5 million homes, though economists disagree about the exact number.³ Meanwhile the supply of low-rent housing is shrinking.¹ In Sightline’s words, “the best kind of rent control is a high vacancy rate.”²

• Design decides who a rule helps

  In San Francisco, rent control kept covered tenants in their homes, but the landlords it covered cut their rental supply by 15%, and the lost supply likely drove up market rents.⁴ As Urban Institute researchers put it, “the way policymakers tweak these elements can significantly change outcomes.”⁵ Exempting new construction is one of the choices experts say matters most for supply.⁶

• Many landlords are small

  Individual owners hold 38% of America’s rental units, and nearly half of all rentals are in buildings of one to four units.⁷ Rules written with corporate landlords in mind land hardest on the owner of a duplex, so requirements should scale with the size of the landlord.

Responsible renting looks like this

Progressive housing policy doesn’t choose between building homes and protecting tenants. It does both.

• Build a lot more homes

  After Minneapolis ended parking minimums and allowed more apartments near transit, its housing stock grew 12% from 2017 to 2022 while rents rose 1%. In the rest of Minnesota, housing grew 4% and rents rose 14%.⁸ Every state and city can make it legal to build more homes of every size.

• Stop rent gouging, without stopping construction

  Oregon and Washington cap yearly increases at 7% plus inflation, California at 5% plus inflation, and all three top out at 10%. Each leaves newer buildings out, so the caps don’t choke off new supply.^9,10,11

• Keep people in their homes

  An eviction makes homelessness and hospital visits more likely and cuts earnings and access to credit.¹² Yet on average only 4% of tenants facing eviction have a lawyer, compared with 84% of landlords. Five states, two counties, and 21 cities now guarantee tenants a lawyer, starting with New York City in 2017.¹³ Every renter facing eviction should have one.

• Public and nonprofit homes that stay affordable

  Only one in four households eligible for a housing voucher gets any federal rental assistance.¹⁴ Closing that gap means funding vouchers, backing housing authorities and nonprofit builders, and trying social housing like Seattle’s, which voters created in 2023 and the city funded with about $115 million this year.¹⁵

• Find unsafe homes before tenants have to complain

  Research finds that inspection systems that wait for complaints miss violations and catch them unevenly.¹⁶ Proactive rental inspections go straight at the problem, without asking tenants to risk their homes by speaking up.

• Rules small landlords can follow

  Clear, proportionate rules keep small owners’ homes on the rental market and focus enforcement on the landlords who break the law.

Where renter protections stand

Your rights as a renter depend a lot on where you live. Here’s the federal floor, and some of the places raising it.

Fair housing, everywhere

The federal Fair Housing Act makes it illegal to discriminate against renters because of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability.¹⁷

Statewide limits on rent gouging

Oregon, California, and Washington limit how much rent can rise in a year for most older rentals.^9,10,11

Just-cause eviction

In states including California and Washington, a landlord needs a reason listed in state law to end most tenancies.^10,18

A lawyer in eviction court

Guaranteed in Washington, Maryland, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Nebraska, and in cities from New York to Los Angeles.¹³

A country where renting works

More homes, so renters have real choices. Rules that are clear, fair, and enforced. Public money spent on building and protecting homes. That’s responsible renting, and it’s a progressive agenda.