Rent control is one of the many things the government used to stabilize, protect and better public life and conditions of housing. Rent control policies have followed the trends of the country’s economic and political activities to accommodate for everyone. Through the years of the two World Wars in the 1900s and the resulting vacancy rates due to the wars, rent regulations has changed accordingly. By reexamining moments of history, I can see how war and massive economic crashes like the Great Depression had an impact on the rent control laws set during that time. However, during the Great Depression, rent control policies had a very minimal effect on housing in the 1930s because rent was already depressed and vacancies stayed high.

Upon reading that the main features of rent stabilization is affordability, habitability, and security of tenure, I was surprised to read that fair returns is also a focus of rent stabilization. In order to encourage landlords and tenant owners to develop new units and/or improve and refurbish older units, the NYC Rent Guidelines Board has to ensure the satisfaction of both tenants who are in need of inexpensive housing and the unit owners who are putting up their units for this program. The Rent Guidelines Board had a broader reach in authority than I previously thought it did. I also found that even though the Rent Guidelines Board has an authority of rent control, the guidelines in which the Board judges what is “affordable” and “fair” and “reasonable” is very up-to-interpretation and therefore difficult to definitively determine what those words translate to in monetary purposes.