‘They're making a huge bet’: Rent control referendum splits progressives

 

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‘They're making a huge bet’: Rent control referendum splits progressives   November 19, 2025 By Chris Lisinski and Jennifer Smith

In the three decades since voters narrowly banned rent control in Massachusetts, every swing to revive even the mildest version of the policy has connected with nothing but air.

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Requests from Boston, Brookline, and Somerville withered on Beacon Hill, statewide bills stalled out, and ballot measures fell apart at early junctures. Progressive elected officials and advocates have settled into a frustrated rhythm: Come before indifferent lawmakers every session and ask, unsuccessfully, to leave rent control decisions in the hands of cities and towns that want it.

Today, the movement to limit rent increases has new momentum, with an updated ballot question coursing toward voters in 2026. It might seem like a boon to the left, but to some who have spent years slowly building support for rent control, the campaign also poses an ultimatum.

That's because the initiative petition does not seek simply to lift the ban, nor to allow rent control in the handful of communities that have requested it. The proposal instead would apply one of the nation's strictest rent caps to all 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts, from Williamstown to West Tisbury and everywhere in between.

It’s a dramatic, swing-for-the-fences approach that the campaign, led by advocacy group Homes for All, sees as simpler messaging.

“We’ll continue to support the local option bill at the State House, and we know that is often the way the state Legislature likes to do policy,” said Homes for All executive director Carolyn Chou. “We’ll continue to push that, but we feel that if we go in front of the voters, we need to be presenting something that will impact their lives immediately.”

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The strategy has put many longtime supporters of capping rents in an awkward position, at a time when housing prices are soaring across Massachusetts and the state vacancy rate is one of the lowest in the nation. Should they spend whatever political capital they’ve built over the past decade on a measure far more dramatic than has previously been suggested? Or should they stay on the sidelines, with the risk of alienating allies or undermining momentum?

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More Context Cambridge rep moves to put rent control on state ballot (August 2023)  ‘It was too effing complicated:’ A pro-housing reckoning over MBTA Communities law (September 2025)

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