If you're a renter you live in a home that a landlord built or paid someone else to build. And if people stop paying rent then they stop paying people to build. Construction workers lose their jobs and our housing problems are made worse.
And don't have any illusions about the rich losing here. Most units are owned by small time landlords who will be wiped out by a rent freeze. Those units will be gobbled up on the cheap by rich people that can borrow money at cheap rates.
> And if people stop paying rent then they stop paying people to build. Construction workers lose their jobs and our housing problems are made worse.
So what? They've already stopped paying people to build. Construction workers have lost their jobs already. While having to keep paying their rent, or mortgage.
This is a temporary disruption, and needs temporary, stop-gap measures to stop the bleeding. Nobody's advocating to stop all rents forever.
> And don't have any illusions about the rich losing here. Most units are owned by small time landlords who will be wiped out by a rent freeze.
1. No, they aren't. Most units are owned by real estate companies.
2. Couple it with a mortgage freeze, and none of them will be wiped out. You can, in fact, kick this can up the hill until it hits the capital markets...
Ultimately we are losing the wealth that we otherwise would have generated. We are poorer and there's no way around that.