“Rent control policies seek to ensure affordable and stable housing for current tenants; however, they also increase the incentive for landlords to evict tenants since rents re-set when tenants leave. We exploit variation across zip codes in policy exposure to the 1994 rent control referendum in San Francisco to study the effects of rent control on eviction behavior. We find that for every 1,000 newly rent controlled units in a zip code, there were 12.05 additional eviction notices filed in that zip code and an additional 4.6 wrongful eviction claims. These effects were concentrated in low income zip codes.”

There is of course another read here, one that might go in a different direction than some talking about this paper would like: “then restrict evictions.” A fight for another day, I suppose.

From this working paper from Eilidh Geddes and Nicole Holz