One way the left tries to make housing affordable is by passing rent control laws that don't allow landlords to charge more than a certain amount.  When that amount is too low landlords can't afford to pay to maintain buildings or to pay the mortgage and taxes on their buildings and they foreclose.  That means they give up their property to the bank and no longer pay anything on the buildings.  Milton Friedman shows what happened in the South Bronx after rent control in the video below.

When this happens to landlords they stop renovating and buying new buildings.  The result is that there are too few buildings.  When a lot of people compete for a few apartments those willing to pay the most will get the apartments and the price will go up.  That is the law of supply and demand.  So the left by passing rent control laws actually cause rents to go up!  The rent controlled apartments become broken down places where no one wants to live. 

Edwin Benson wrote:

 In a recent article, The Wall Street Journal focused on a landlady, Mrs. Sharon Cohen. She is a sixty-four-year-old widow who owns a century-old, thirty-five-unit apartment building in the Bronx. It is her sole means of support. According to the City, the building is worth a bit more than a million dollars. However, a local bank holds a $417,000 mortgage against it. Unlike the gorgeous New York penthouses featured in many television shows and magazine articles, Mrs. Cohen’s apartments are strictly low-rent, averaging roughly $1,300 each per month. Mrs. Cohen nearly lost the whole place in 2017 and 2018. During that time, the City froze all rents by order of Mayor Bill de Blasio, an admitted socialist who supported Bernie Sanders’s 2020 run for the White House. Of course, Mrs. Cohen’s maintenance costs continued to rise. With thirty-five units, replacing plumbing, light fixtures, refrigerators, and ovens is a regular expense. Painting, carpeting, and cleaning are virtually continuous. And, of course, the city tax collector was unsympathetic. During the freeze, her property taxes increased by about $8,000. Satanic Christ Porn-blasphemy at Walmart — Sign Petition Then, during COVID, the City’s notorious “eviction ban” took its toll. Tenants ran up massive debts and then left without paying once the ban ended. In the post-COVID environment, evictions are still difficult to obtain—taking two years if the apartment is “rent stabilized,” as many of Mrs. Cohen’s are. The habit of not paying rent is hard to break. According to the WSJ, “In the first half of July, she received $14,000 of an expected $46,000.” Her current tenants owe her a total of $158,000. In the last year and a half, several tenants owing a total of $130,000 simply left. Meanwhile new proposals of rent control are being floated. Tenant’s hardships go conveniently unmentioned.

Stossel looks at what rent control did to St. Paul, Minnesota in the video below.