Subsidies just increase the market price of the properties. The subsidy will be sucked up by the landlord, which of course leads to rent control. Which provid

Subsidies just increase the market price of the properties. The subsidy will be sucked up by the landlord, which of course leads to rent control. Which provides disincentives on capital improvements. This is similar to the way that student loans have resulted in higher tuition/housing that once again just gets sucked up by the institutions. The recent appeal for "free college" funded by the taxpayer will almost certainly result in increased tuition. If only we had a simple mechanism that balanced supply and demand. I think there are areas where government regulation is necessary and appropriate (safety, fraud avoidance, pollution, health, etc.) but regulating prices is almost always a failure that leads to an ever expanding Rube Goldberg collection of incentives, subsidies, rules, tax loopholes, and so on that are much worse than just letting prices float naturally.