Notably, the three candidates who completed the survey all agreed with the statement that “the federal government has an obligation to proactively address racially discriminatory housing policies from the past.”
But there are also significant points of disagreement.
Mr. Sanders, for instance, is the only candidate calling for a national rent control law. Specifically, he wants to limit annual rent increases to 3 percent or 1.5 times the Consumer Price Index, whichever is higher. Landlords could apply for waivers if they made significant improvements to an apartment or building.
“Landlords cannot be allowed to raise rents to whatever they want, whenever they want,” Mr. Sanders’s campaign wrote in response to the survey, adding that he would encourage states and cities to enact even stricter rent control.
Ms. Warren’s campaign said that she did not want a federal rent control law but that she “strongly supports state and local rent control efforts, which she believes will be more effective at protecting renters from unacceptable rent increases while ensuring adequate affordable housing supply.”
Mr. Bloomberg said he opposed national rent control, and Mr. Biden’s plan does not mention it.
The candidates are evenly split on the question of a tax credit for renters, and not along the usual ideological lines: Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders support it, while Mr. Bloomberg and Ms. Warren do not.
Under Mr. Biden’s plan, renters would receive the credit if their rent and utilities exceeded 30 percent of their income, and the credit would be large enough to bring the costs down to that 30 percent mark. He said he would allocate $5 billion a year for the credit, which would help “low-income individuals and families who may make too much money to qualify for a Section 8 voucher but still struggle to pay their rent.”
Mr. Sanders’s campaign said that while he supported a renter’s tax credit, it “must be paired with rent control to ensure it is not a windfall for real estate investors.” Landlords should not be allowed to raise rents at will “and then have the federal government subsidize those rent increases,” he said.