> * I don't own a car or exercise equipment; if Uber or my local gym raise rates, I'll be bummed, but I don't begrudge them for doing it*
That's... not really the same? Having to change gyms or pay more for transportation (or use public transit) is a lot less of a drastic life change than having to find a new home, possibly not even in the same neighborhood or city that you may have lived in for years.
> As far as landlords go, I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to raise the cost of rent to keep up with cost-of-living just like anyone else.
I agree, and most (all?) rent control laws account for that by allowing limited yearly increases. SF's rent control increases are indexed to inflation. That's not a perfect proxy for cost of living; maybe CPI would be better. But the point is that it can be done, and landlords can raise rent yearly.
But when we look at non-rent-controlled units in SF over the past 10-15 years, that's not what we see. We see double-digit increases, sometimes above 25%. The cost of living or cost of being a landlord has not magically jumped by that much in a single year. They are jacking up the rent because they can, because they want more money, and because they don't care about how that affects their current tenant. That's... pretty much the definition of greed.
> My current landlord own a house or two on my block, and they make their living off of the profits they earn by renting and maintaining these houses.
I don't entirely subscribe to this view, but I know people who are basically against this form of making a living. Consider that it's literally rent-seeking behavior. Is it good for society to allow people to get into a position where they may have to displace a family from their home because their financial system has changed?
> Just one of many better solutions would be subsidized rent assistance: give the renters the difference they need to make rent, straight up in cash.
What stops landlords from just jacking up rent further? If they know a portion of the rent is coming from the government, and the government will pay a fixed percentage of the rent, they can simply raise rents and demand more, and we're in the same spot all over again. It then becomes a transfer of wealth from taxpayers to landlords.
> If costs in the city have gone up by 10%, that's just evidence of the fact that there's a ton of demand fighting for not enough supply. Artificially restricting supply even further is an unsustainable solution for the city as a whole, and far better solutions already exist for keeping people in their homes.
I used to be against rent control for this reason, but the problem is that it ignores reality. Zoning can be restrictive. Political will for building can be difficult to come by. Planning processes can be lengthy and expensive. Incumbent landowners can lobby to restrict new housing from being built. If we eliminated rent control in SF tomorrow, without making any other changes, it wouldn't magically make rents reasonable across the board. Many (perhaps even most) people in those formerly-rent-controlled units would still become displaced. And that's the point, here: rent control is a way to keep rents affordable when it's not possible -- for whatever reason -- for supply to meet demand.
Also consider its importance when the rental market becomes extremely volatile. Sure, maybe you can say in some locale that over the span of 50 years rents on average only grew 3% per year, and on the face of it, that sounds pretty reasonable. But like in equity markets ("the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent"), that doesn't matter if in that 50 year period, rent increases were 10% per year for 10 years (or 20% a year for 5 years, or whatever). Most people can't handle that sort of shock to their finances.