> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Rent control is help, not a handout
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/rent-control-is-help-not-a-handout-editor/
- Published: 2007-05-25T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T00:51:05.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Joel C. Koury Vice Chair, Santa Monica Rent Control Board*

This weekend’s article on rent control (“First-come, first-served,” May 19-20) falls far short of the balanced coverage that one would expect from your paper. Unrebutted assertions from strident opponents of rent control combined with a few select anecdotes is incomplete, if not outright misleading.

For example, there is a disparity in rents between market rate units and pre-1999 units, but it is not because of rent control. When Santa Monica voters enacted rent control, we guaranteed that every rental unit would be moderately priced. It is only after conservative real estate developers convinced state legislators to overrule the will of Santa Monica voters with the Costa-Hawkins’ law that we saw the creation of the current two-tiered rental scheme.

But the most ridiculous claim is that rent control has contributed to the lack of affordable housing in the city. This is a little like blaming the Red Cross for starvation in Darfur. The only reason that we have any low and moderate rental housing in this city is because of rent control. Every square inch of property is developed in this town and it will never get any cheaper. Does anyone really believe that if rent control were abolished tomorrow, that real estate speculators would actually stop converting existing units into condos and voluntarily build low income rental units?

As an elected member of the city’s Rent Board, we do not make decisions based on anecdotes; we choose to rely on facts. In October, we got the results of a comprehensive, scientifically-based, survey of who is actually renting in our city. Fact: 70 percent of the families that live in the pre-1999 rent control units make less than $60,000 per year. Fact: Almost 75 percent of the residents of the pre- 1999 units are over 45 years old. Fact: 55 percent of them are working only part-time, are self-employed or retired. Fact: There are over 13,000 tenants living in pre-1999 controlled units and virtually none of them could live here without rent control.

But behind the numbers are people. Like my neighbors Joan, a single mom, and her young daughter Alyssa, whose only hope for a quality education is their rent-controlled apartment. Or my elderly friend Marilyn, disabled with congestive heart failure living on a fixed income, who would have been priced out of her apartment years ago but for rent control. While most politicians talk about helping people of low and moderate income, we in our city are actually doing something. And that is the part of the story (the Daily Press) missed.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 25, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/052507.pdf?ref=smdp.com)