Council Member Will Jawando is leading the County Council’s effort to introduce county-wide rent control. Since taking office, CM Jawando has been pursuing policies, enactments, and budgets that are void of any policy analysis, and the issue of rent control is no exception. In this post we’ll review remarks he made at a recent hearing on rent control that highlights his decision-making process. (View CM Jawando’s entire statement during that hearing at this YouTube video.)
The web site city-data.com has a list of cities ranked by percentage of residents who are renters. The top one hundred cities (from Bronx, NY to Milwaukee, WI) rank from 80.7% to 56.4% residents who are renters, far above the one-third number of residents in Montgomery County.
For a more relevant comparison, in 2019, the percentage of renters in the DC region by county was as follows:
| County | Percentage of residents who are renters |
| Fairfax | 32.61 |
| Arlington | 19.97 |
| Alexandria | 20.69 |
| DC | 58.50 |
| Prince George’s | 37.39 |
| Montgomery | 35.22 |
No, there is nothing unique about the percentage of renters in MoCo. It is higher than it was 30 years ago, but it’s actually quite typical for the DC region and the United States overall.
In 2019 there were 391,006 housing units within Montgomery County. Let’s assume that one-third* of those units are rented, so we have 130,335 rental units. If the Department of Housing and Community Affairs (DHCA) received 116 complaints, and all of them are justified, none of them duplicates, and all filed against distinct landlords, then only 0.03% of the landlords were garbage enough to warrant a complaint. CM Jawando rightly suspects that 116 is quite a bit lower than the actual number of complaints, because not all tenants are aware of the DHCA and its enforcement powers. (Which implies the DHCA isn’t entirely necessary, and that’s a discussion for another post.) Let’s say the actual number is tenfold greater; that means 0.3% of the landlords are crank-heads. Let’s say the actual number is hundredfold greater; that means 3% of the landlords are crank-heads. Does a 3% violation rate mean rent control is warranted, punishing 97% of the landlords who are responsible?
*An inquiry was made to the County Housing Department to validate this percentage, as of 1/5/2023 there has been no response. If a response is provided the article will be updated.
Furthermore, are all 116 complaints unjustifiably submitted by a single turkey tenant? Are all 116 complaints justifiably filed against a single turkey landlord? It appears nobody did that research. In short, there is no evidence that as a group county’s landlords are extorting the tenants, so there is no demonstrated need for rent control.
Most landlords would agree. Increasing the rent by 90% is indeed unconscionable. Most landlords, Mr. Jawando included, know that it’s downright impossible. The large apartment buildings in the White Oak area provide enough alternatives to renters such that landlords realize they will lose a tenant should they excessively increase the rent. Perhaps a landlord increased the rent by 60% because there were no increases for the previous 15 years, implying the tenant was benefiting greatly from below-market rents. Lastly, if those high-percentage increases are indeed rare, as CM Jawando himself concedes, then again there is no need for rent control. The county already has enough power to make an individual landlord’s life miserable as punishment for an unjust rent increase.
Here is where we move from uninformed policy decisions to prejudice. There are presumably 116 rental units owned by unfair landlords who are using their massive power imbalance to exploit tenants. Using that extremely rare situation to label all landlords in the same way is nothing but bigotry.
During the pandemic, the DHCA hosted an information session for landlords regarding prohibitions on evictions and rent increases. Several “landlords” with “massive power imbalance” (retirees, widows who own one rental unit) complained during that session that their tenants were taking advantage of that situation by a) not paying rent and b) trashing the dwellings. Those few exceptions are indeed freeloaders; the vast majority of tenants treat their dwellings as their own. Just as we don’t judge all tenants based on the actions of a few, we don’t judge all landlords based on the actions of a few. There is no need for prejudice on the part of our elected officials.
In short, there is no data to suggest that rent control is warranted in Montgomery County. CM Jawando is promoting a policy that is not based on data, not based on science, and at least partially based on intolerance. It isn’t the first time he’s engaged in no-science legislation; a previous example is his $1,000 fine should guests at a girl’s quinceañera release helium-filled balloons into the air. Additionally, he’s not the only council member to do no-science, and the current council isn’t the first one to do so. There are many more policies, prohibitions, regulations, fines, underemployed bureaucrats, and overblown bureaucracies that make people want to leave the county because of problems manufactured by our elected officials.
