From there it's just a matter of deciding what is and isn't allowed. I happen to be viscerally against the idea that a person's basic need -- a stable home -- should be overridden by another's desire to get more money out of an investment.

You seem to be of the opinion that people shouldn't have the right to a stable home if the owner of that home wants more money. I... guess that's ok? Not really big on compassion or empathy, but... it's an opinion, I suppose.

Your focus on "greed" completely lacks nuance. A landlord raising rent 30% just because demand is high (when the costs of being a landlord have not meaningfully increased; the concept of "market rate" is irrelevant here) is greed, absolutely, no question about it. A worker or union fighting for higher wages may or may not be greed, depending on the circumstances; usually it's not, because in general employers have much more power than employees (even when unions are involved), and worker pay has stagnated in recent decades, while executive pay has skyrocketed.

I mean, that's painting with a pretty broad brush. Nobody said anything about legalizing doing anything you want with land. You're never going to have a perfectly stable arrangement when renting someone else's property: 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 (even if it means I have to move to a less convenient gym.) I have empathy for those Uber drivers and workers at the gym.

I can absolutely empathize with those living through increases in rent, I just happen to believe that the solution to that problem is not to implement policies that make those renters beholden to their current landlords forever (even if their circumstances change and a new home would be more convenient). And just as I have empathy for those renters who want to stay in their homes, I have empathy for those renters who got a new job across town but can't afford to move, because they've lived in the same home for fifteen years and can't afford market rate at a new place.

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. 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. Just like I want to get a bump in pay every year, it seems eminently reasonable (and not greedy of them) to grant that to them as well. I have empathy for the landlords who provide me with my home, and provide repairs and maintenance.

If the problem that we're talking about is that people can't afford their homes because the rate that others is willing to pay is higher than they can afford, the solution is not to form isolated bubbles that ignore what's going on in the rest of the market and create indentured renters. 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. 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 guess my big point is that if you boil down a complex issue like this to good people vs. bad people, you're not being honest to the actual issues at hand. To assume that landlords increase rent solely out of greed, or to assume that being okay with rent increases implies a lack of compassion, or to assume that support for policies that lock-in rent are the only empathetic stance to hold don't seem to leave a lot of room for discussion or understanding.

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.