The Beacon Rent Control Study, just released in January 2016, made the following findings:

·         Beacon Economics did not find strong evidence that rent control helps to reduce the number of low – income households spending 30% or more of their income on rent.
·         Rent control can have a negative impact on low – income households not living in rent – controlled units through higher growth in citywide median rents. Rent control ordinances are associated with lower growth rates in the supply of rental housing and with higher rental price growth in the broader market.
·         Rents are too high because multi-family housing and the state’s housing stock have failed to expand commensurately with the ever-growing population.
·         The Solution to this affordability problem is to expand the apartment stock in these cities, not introduce price ceilings.

The study also found that for low-income households, there was no statistically significant decrease found in rents in rent control cities, which suggests that rent control policies do not directly affect the intended recipients.