Watching images of Hurricane Harvey wreaking havoc in Texas brings to mind vivid images of people stranded on rooftops during Hurricane Katrina. Over a decade ago, the United States was hit with one of the deadliest (claiming 1800 lives) and costliest ($160 billion in damages) storms in recorded history. The outdated storm protection system in New Orleans was to blame for most of Katrina's damage. The city's most critical system of defense against flooding was its levees. The destruction caused from the hurricane's winds paled in comparison to the devastation caused by the pervasive flooding. Experts speculate that had the levees been properly designed and maintained, the death toll and damages would have been drastically lower.

The victims of hurricanes Katrina, Sandy and Harvey have one thing in common: the storms arrived with little to no warning, and families found themselves without housing almost overnight. From one moment to the next, a family that was carrying on its daily activities in peace and harmony suddenly found itself scrambling to stay together, find shelter and stay alive. In densely populated New Jersey, the affordable housing crisis has forced families, for decades, to also find themselves scrambling to stay together, find shelter and stay alive.

Rent control laws are our municipalities' levees. They serve to protect hard working tenants from unscrupulous landlords who prey on the innocent. Without rent control protections in place, families that live and work in the some of the most densely populated areas in New Jersey, would find themselves without a home, and in all likelihood, without work. In rent controlled cities, a tenant's only line of defense standing between unaffordable rent increases, is the local ordinance which established the legally permissible rate for that specific dwelling, before the tenant ever took possession.