Rent control has a history in Michigan dating all the way back to World War I, but it wasn’t until 1988 that former Gov. James Blanchard signed the ban prohibiting rent control into law. With Ann Arbor facing an affordable housing crisis, The Michigan Daily examined the history of rent control in the state of Michigan.
In 2018, nearly one in six renting households in Michigan were threatened with eviction by their landlords. More recently, in 2023, the National Low Income Housing Coalition published a study showing that individuals would need to make $45,025 annually to be able to afford a two-bedroom apartment in Michigan at the monthly fair market rent of $1,126, a value significantly greater than Michigan’s median income of $35,400 as of 2022.
Rent control policies can vary widely in their stringency and handling of issues, such as how to determine who gets to move into available rent-controlled housing.
Economics professor James Hines has taught classes on rent control at the University of Michigan. In an interview with The Daily, Hines explained that rent control can take many forms and have varying effects.
“The basic idea is simple to describe, which is it’s a limit on how much a landlord can charge in rent for a tenant,” Hines said. “There are a lot of complications and every town has different rules. … There are a lot of different forms of rent control.”
Hines also discussed the benefits and drawbacks of rent control for tenants.
“The good part about rent control is that … it does lead to lower prices,” Hines said. “The bad part from the tenant standpoint is it makes it harder to get places to rent, and they may be a little more dilapidated, as a result of the landlord not having incentives to make them really nice.
In an interview with The Daily, Alexa Eisenberg, postdoctoral research fellow at the University’s Poverty Solutions research initiative, said that while Michigan as a whole is suffering from a lack of affordable housing, the problem is particularly evident in Ann Arbor.
“We have a very large student population, many of whom are student workers or are unable to work because they’re in school, and they’re struggling a lot with their housing costs,” Eisenberg said. “So this is a very student-specific issue. And then there’s also the fact that there’s an entire community of nonstudents that are impacted greatly by the University of Michigan’s presence and its lack of subsidization for student housing.”
State Rep. Carrie Rheingans, D-Ann Arbor, introduced a bill last year to repeal the state’s rent control prohibition. Rheingans met with The Daily to discuss the proposed bill. She said her bill would allow communities within Michigan to make their own rent control policies if they chose to.
“If my bill passes, then municipalities across the state could establish their own local ordinances, for their jurisdictions, of rent control policies,” Rheingans said. “So then it would be up to any municipality to determine what policy would work for their municipality.”
Rheingans is a renter in Ann Arbor and said her personal experience reflects the severity of the city’s affordability issues.
“I’ve been renting here since the year 2000,” Rheingans said. “I am now a middle-aged person. I’m a parent, and I’m still renting because I cannot afford to buy in this community.”
Rheingans’ bill has been referred to the Committee on Economic Development and Small Business, a subcommittee of the Michigan House of Representatives that deals primarily with economics and business, including housing and rent. Although she does not know how long it will be until the bill is voted on, Rheingans said she remains optimistic because of the demand she believes Michigan residents have for rent control.
“Every single legislator has renters in their district who are struggling to survive,” Rheingans said. “And renters — no matter if they’re families like me, elders, people who work in our industries, or students — are demanding something to change. We can’t do nothing.”
Eisenberg said the passage of the bill would be the first step towards implementing rent control in Michigan communities and that greater change would come from renters working with each other at the local level.
“I just think it’s easy for renters to feel powerless, especially when the stability and cost of their housing is at the whim of their landlords,” Eisenberg said. “But when a lot of people are struggling and a lot of people are under a shared set of conditions that are harmful, there’s a lot of power in those people getting together and fighting for their rights.”
Engineering senior Tyler Sholtis rents in Ann Arbor. In an interview with The Daily, Sholtis said the mismatch between rental prices and housing quality is frustrating.
“When my landlord raises my rent, I get very mad … especially because the value of my house has not gone up in any way,” Sholtis said. “I think that it’s kind of ridiculous that my leasing company can continue to just do that over and over again.”
Jordan Else co-owns Wessinger Properties, a firm that supplies rental housing in Ann Arbor. While she said she understands the arguments for rent control, Else told The Daily she has reservations about the policy.
“We already have a problem with landlords not maintaining their houses (greatly) here, and I worry that that would even worsen,” Else said. “I worry that if we start talking about legislation landlords will hike up rent prices even more out of fear.”
Else said the availability of affordable housing for students was a major issue and that both the city of Ann Arbor and the University should play a larger role in addressing the problem.
“I think that more conversations (need to occur) at the city and university level about the need for affordable housing,” Else said.
Zackariah Farah, chair of the Ann Arbor Renters Commission, said in an interview with The Daily that rent control is controversial primarily due to the fact that it limits profits, prompting opposition from landlords.
“Whenever you talk about something that might limit profits, economic actors who really care about those profits are going to try to dismiss this argument,” Farah said.
Farah continued by saying that while objections to rent control are often exaggerated and shouldn’t be used to dismiss the idea as a whole, they are still legitimate and deserve consideration.
“I think there are some serious concerns, most definitely,” Farah said. “I think frequently they’re overblown by those who have an interest in having no rent control and maximizing profits. But those concerns definitely shouldn’t be dismissed outright.”
Daily Staff Reporters Michelle Liao and Nolan Sargent can be reached at mrliao@umich.edu and nsarge@umich.edu.