Instead of simply increasing regulation and inspections, governments must remove the opportunity for exploitative profit by insisting on rent controls, providing subsidies for necessary repair work, and re-upping their role—both in ownership and management—of housing, before we are dealing with dire situations.
In addition, my research shows that if municipalities do not invest in housing, even the best of intentions can perpetuate housing inequality. I learned this after three years of researching housing inspections in Chicago. Consistent with other studies, I saw inspectors’ ire at negligent landlords. One inspector told me that after his 20 years of inspecting deplorable living conditions, he prays for some landlords to go to “landlord hell.” [...]
But my research also illuminates the unintended consequences of these well-intended actions: rent hikes. My statistical analysis of over 280,000 building code citations and five years of rental data verifies that every citation and violation that is then fixed is associated with a 5.4 percent rent increase, a number that is consistent when normed across properties of the same age, size, value, and neighborhood.
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