Kendan Bendt
Reporter
Earlier this month, the PLU debate team hosted a debate on rent control in Tacoma as a solution to the current housing crisis facing the people living in the area.
Representing the pro-rent control side were Pacific Lutheran University Debate Captain Summer Ash and Tenants Union worker Dinah Braccio. Representing the anti-rent control side were 2nd District Representative Andrew Barkis of the Washington State Congress, and Hannah Backus, also from the PLU debate team.
Participants on both sides agreed on the importance of the issue with each side focusing on what was most important to them in addressing this relevant topic. All involved agreed the problem was complex and multi-faceted that rent control by itself would not solve.
Rep. Andrew Barkis emphasized that it is important to “continue these conversations” in finding solutions to the crisis of housing. Barkis believes there are legislative alternatives to rent control and it is important to work together with both sides to address the housing crisis.
“The crux of our problem right now is that we have a very short supply of housing at all levels. In order to address that we need to take a look at some long standing issues or policies that have been detrimental or preventative in getting supply to the market,” Barkis said.
Tenants Union activist Dinah Braccio grounded her view of the debate in a discussion of morality.
“The most important part of my side’s argument during the debate was who we as a society are valuing,” Braccio said. “I believe that the stability of renters and their ability to remain securely housed is more important than a landlord’s ability to extract unlimited profit.”
When asked about the relationship between landlords and tenants, a hot point of contention in this debate, both sides had very different answers.
“The relationship between tenants and landlords is fundamentally antagonistic. Landlords have secured for themselves more homes than they need and are trying to profit off of this resource hoarding,” Braccio said.
Braccio argues that tenants desire to find cheap and affordable housing, and landlords desire to maximize profit off of the property they own. Due to this, the two groups’ interests are fundamentally at odds due to the imbalance of power in the relationship (being that landlords own the property). Particularly, she called out the opposing side for “seeming very committed to framing the relationship as one where they graciously provide for us poor unfortunate renters.”
“It was characterized in the debate especially from the opposition, those who are in favor of rent control, that there is a very poor relationship between landlords and tenants. That landlords are taking advantage of tenants, that landlords want to evict tenants, that landlords want to jack up rents so people can’t afford where they live. This is not the case,” Barkis said.
While he did admit that there are bad landlords who treat their tenants poorly and don’t take care of the property, he emphasized that as long as both parties stay within the bounds of their initial agreement to rent the property, the relationship between landlords and tenants is overall very good.
Though Barkis said that the arguments from the pro-rent control side were emotionally driven while his side relied on facts and tangible evidence, and Braccio found the anti rent-control debaters disingenuous and dealing in misinformation, both sides emphasized the importance of having had the debate.
