By Dylan Valencia & Peggy Wang (Massachusetts Teachers Association, personal capacity)
Boston, MA
The campaign to win statewide rent control in Massachusetts resumes this spring/summer. The Homes for All Massachusetts coalition has proposed a ballot initiative for November 2026 that would establish statewide rent control, limiting annual rent increases to 5% or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. After the campaign successfully collected 125,000 signatures in fall 2025, the Massachusetts legislature had six months to consider implementing the measure, but rejected doing so, forcing supporters to collect another 25,000 signatures within five weeks between May and June in order to get the measure onto the ballot in the fall.
The initiative, targeting the November 2026 ballot, faces attacks from corporate real estate groups organized under the misleadingly titled “Housing for Massachusetts.” For example, the National Association of Realtors has committed $3 million in the form of an Issues Mobilization Grant to fight rent control and is watching the measure closely, while Mass Landlords, Inc. is directly soliciting donations from members at around $500 per member to fight the initiative. Moreover, the “Housing for Massachusetts” campaign that opposes rent control has filed a lawsuit seeking to remove the proposal from the November 2026 ballot.
Bring Rent Control Back
Rent control was established in 1970 in Massachusetts, but the state legislature, controlled by the Democratic Party, made rent control illegal throughout the state in 1994. Not surprisingly, rents and evictions have skyrocketed since then. Further, 12 Democratic mayors and Democratic Governor Maura Healey have adamantly come out in opposition to rent control: mayors Christopher Johnson of Agawam, Erin Joyce of Braintree, Robert Van Campen of Everett, Michael J. Nicholson of Gardner, Joshua A. Garcia of Holyoke, Brian DePeña of Lawrence, Dean J. Mazzarella of Leominster, David P. Beauregard of Methuen, Jon Mitchell of New Bedford, Thomas P. Koch of Quincy, Patrick M. Keefe Jr. of Revere, and Joseph Petty of Worcester.
Rent control opponents argue that rent control would stunt construction of new apartment complexes or homes, and thus not increase supply, which would supposedly prevent any reduction in the cost of rent. There is no evidence to support this. The housing crisis got much worse after rent control ended. In reality, we can’t afford the luxury housing prices or even so-called “affordable” ones. According to the MIT living wage calculator, a single person with no children needs to work 2 minimum-wage jobs in order to afford to not be rent-burdened in Massachusetts. The real-time vacancy rate in Boston is 1.43%, which has more than doubled since April 2024, in part due to an increasing number of workers who cannot afford these apartments.
Instead of cities and the state giving handouts and low-interest-rate loans to big private developers and landlords to build unaffordable luxury housing, a real housing program would tax the rich and corporations to build quality public housing on public land. But the Democratic Party backs the corporate real estate interests. Maura Healey has bragged about letting private developers construct housing on 450 acres of public land while she’s been in office. In Providence, RI, the Democratic Party mayor vetoed the city council’s approval of a rent control measure. The city council then failed to override the mayor’s veto in a 9-1 vote. Records show large donations by real estate corporations helped to defeat the vote.
An independent left candidate, Andrea James, running for Massachusetts Governor against Democrat Maura Healey, firmly supports this rent control ballot measure and blatantly calls out the Democrats who openly oppose rent control in the state. ISG has been helping support James’ campaign as she attempts to get on the ballot for November 2026. James also supports other progressive demands like a $25/hr min wage and free public higher education.
ISG has been leafleting, collecting signatures, and holding public meetings in favor of rent control to raise awareness about the ballot measure. We encourage all working-class people and youth to get involved in the campaign to defeat the corporate landlords and real estate developers who have unchecked power over the housing market.
We also encourage support for the Andrea James campaign. It is not a coincidence that there have been multiple roadblocks to even getting this initiative on the ballot. If the Democratic Party supported rent control, they would have implemented it by now. The Democratic and Republican parties both back corporate landlords over the working class. The corporate political duopoly wants to further reinforce the control that the wealthy and corporations have over the working class to further exploit our need for housing.
ISG helped to collect signatures this spring to get rent control on the ballot in November, including in Quincy, Boston (Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Allston, UMass Boston), Worcester, Bridgewater, Brookline, and Randolph.
Just Rent Control is Not Enough
Although ISG supports this ballot measure for rent control, we believe that more is necessary. This is especially true considering owner-occupied buildings of four units or less would be exempt from rent control, along with “new construction” less than 10 years old. The proposed limit of 5% rent increases is also still too high. ISG raises the need for a socialist program to tackle the housing emergency nationwide. We need a movement that involves renters, tenant unions, labor unions, and working people organizing on a mass scale. The movement could organize occupations of empty properties, rent strikes, and mass protests. Mass mobilization could win nationwide rent control and a rent freeze, an eviction moratorium, and mass building of quality public housing with union labor, funded through taxing corporations and the rich. We need to organize a workers’ party to fight for housing for all against the Democratic and Republican parties who defend corporate landlords and the capitalist class.
Even if the rent control initiative doesn’t get onto the ballot this November, or is defeated by the corporate real estate interests, that doesn’t stop the momentum gained during signature collecting for the initiative. We should still unite tenant and labor unions and working-class people to help propel the movement forward for the general demands of rent control, rent freeze, and more public housing. If rent control is approved by voters in Massachusetts this fall, it’ll be a big win for working people, but it won’t solve the cost-of-living crisis as a whole. We still need to fight for price controls and a $30/hr minimum wage. And if we want to ensure housing for all as a right and not a commodity as it is under capitalism, we need to fight for a socialist world where the economy produces to meet people’s needs, not for profit.
Independent Socialist Group 