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RENT CONTROL IS popular in Massachusetts. An overwhelming 69 percent of Bay State voters say they would vote to support a ballot initiative that caps rent increases at the rate of inflation or 5 percent (whichever is lower).

The campaign for rent stabilization collected more than 157,000 signatures to place such a measure on the ballot this November. But to the delight of corporate landlords and real estate executives, the Supreme Judicial Court struck it from the ballot — based on a precedent-setting technicality: The measure exempted religious institutions, which the court found unlawful even though most rent control ordinances across the country contain this exemption.

However, the fight is not over. The Legislature now has the opportunity to act. State lawmakers must take action to uphold the will of Bay Staters by lifting the ban on rent control and allowing local jurisdictions to pass the rent stabilization ordinances that work best for their communities.

The evidence is adding up that the housing affordability crisis can’t be solved solely by building more market-rate housing. It will take thoughtful, flexible measures like the proposed legislative compromise that was gaining momentum before the court’s decision, which would allow cities and towns to opt into rent stabilization.

Rent control stabilizes communities. A recent meta-analysis published in the Journal of Housing Economics examined 112 studies on rent control and found the policy is successful at lowering rents. Rent stabilization implemented in Paris, France, in 2019, for example, led to an average decrease of 3.7 to 4.2 percent four years after its implementation — with “no evidence that the policy led to a structural decline in the number of listings.”

Moderate rent control also does not hurt new housing production, according to a study from the University of Southern California. And the existence of rent stabilized units in New York City did not stop 2025 from being a prolific year in residential completions there.

The real estate industry wrongly claims high rents are simply a supply problem. They are pushing to deregulate and build more market-rate housing. But this argument fundamentally misunderstands the root cause of our housing affordability crisis.

A working paper published earlier this year by scholars from the University of California, Berkeley, and other institutions found that the fundamental driver of housing unaffordability isn’t necessarily an undersupply of new housing. It’s income inequality. As income growth gets distributed upwards — and the wages of non-college educated households continue to stagnate — developers increasingly prioritize responding to the housing demand driven by higher-income households.

As a result, new market-rate construction can often raise rents for low-income households, accelerating gentrification before any potential benefits of cheaper housing “trickle down.” Older homes may eventually experience a drop in average rental prices, but it could take decades before they are affordable to lower-income households.

Nor will private developers automatically build more just because zoning laws are loosened. Developers are profit-maximizing firms. They’ll build more housing only when market conditions are at their most favorable — not just because they have the option to build more. They’ll simply delay construction if they anticipate profits will be greater in the future.

For private developers and landlords, the market is working as intended. Their goal is not to guarantee that the vast majority of tenants are cheaply housed, but to make profits and increase the value of their real estate assets. They have no incentive to significantly lower prices through oversupply.

More housing is absolutely necessary for bringing prices down, but market-rate construction alone does little to deliver affordability to working households in the short and medium term. Struggling families cannot wait 10 years for older properties to filter down. People need relief now.

Rent control is an obvious alternative. Nearly 200 jurisdictions in the United States now have rent stabilization policies in place, benefiting millions of residents without hurting housing production rates. In Massachusetts, the city councils of Boston, Springfield, Northampton, Lynn, Holyoke, and Easthampton have all passed resolutions in support of rent stabilization.

Massachusetts has the unfortunate honor of being the most expensive state by average rent in the country. Rent control, accompanied by policies to reduce income inequality and increase the supply of permanent and deeply affordable social housing, is a crucial first step towards bringing households back from the brink.

With the vast majority of Massachusetts residents expressing support for a statewide rent control ballot measure they’ll no longer get a chance to vote on, the Legislature needs to lift the ban so communities can act.

Omar Ocampo is an inequality researcher at the Institute for Policy Studies and the author of studies on housing affordability in Boston and beyond.