The housing crisis will never end without levying forceful taxes against real estate speculators and investors. A recent report outlines the necessary actions to impose taxes that can actually narrow the wealth gap and alleviate the housing emergency.
I think the concern is that:
Now, the solution is to a) couple this with rent control, b) exempt purpose-built rentals from this endeavour, and c) punish serial transgressions with confiscation.
Frankly, I think the idea of punishing malfeasance by landlords with confiscation to be just awesome: if you’re a predatory slumlord, we take the house and repurpose it as RGI public housing. Do I worry about the government becoming predatory? Yes, yes I do, but in this case it’s a lesser-of-two-evils thin.
Slumlords and overpriced rentals can be storage issues though. It can be a nice place, but if you’re paying $2k+/mo for a 1b1b that’s way too fucking much even if it’s in good condition