> [Rent control policy] will tend throw currently homeless people under the bus.
Precisely the opposite is true. Uncontroversially the immediate effect of abolishing rent control will be to create more homeless.
Rent control does not apply to new construction in many cities such as SF, so it does not affect the incentive to build. The mechanism by which abolishing rent control might lower prices somewhat for wealthier people moving into the city is by clearing out the less fortunate who have built lives here, adding their units to the market. Those that have nowhere else to go will become homeless.
Precisely the opposite is true. Uncontroversially the immediate effect of abolishing rent control will be to create more homeless.
Rent control does not apply to new construction in many cities such as SF, so it does not affect the incentive to build. The mechanism by which abolishing rent control might lower prices somewhat for wealthier people moving into the city is by clearing out the less fortunate who have built lives here, adding their units to the market. Those that have nowhere else to go will become homeless.