Wow! Hiring people and paying them well is a problem?
SF has severely restricted supply for decades with some of the most restrictive planning and building codes in the US. In SF anyone can force a hearing on a building permit - after planning review, neighbor notice, hearings appeals, etc. This is unheard of anywhere else and is why it takes years to build new housing. Then there is the rent control ordinance that stopped new apartment building for a decade and keeps thousands of units vacant today.
It causes problems for the middle class being priced out of the market, yes. How is dropping rent controls supposed to anything but exacerbate that problem?
Price controls, like rent control, have the well know effect of reducing supply. Along with extremely restrictive building policies, SF housing supply has become inflexible and is unable to keep up with demand thus prices will go up. This is exacerbated by the various low income housing policies which also reduce the supply of market priced housing that the middle class occupies.
This was entirely predictable. There is no free lunch. You can't have cheap housing for some without raising the price for everyone else. SF is just a particularly extreme example.
BTW - Don't worry about rent control going away anytime soon - we are locked in politically. And planning restrictions are unlikely to ease either. So expect continued above inflation price/rent increases and a slow exodus of the middle class. Due to the poor schools we have already lost many families.
Many SF landlords have voluntarily removing units unit from the market by simply not rerenting after they become vacant because of all the hassles of rent control. This is one of several way that rent control reduces the number of units available for occupancy, known as "supply".
Understand? I'd not, I suggest reading any basic economics text.
SF has severely restricted supply for decades with some of the most restrictive planning and building codes in the US. In SF anyone can force a hearing on a building permit - after planning review, neighbor notice, hearings appeals, etc. This is unheard of anywhere else and is why it takes years to build new housing. Then there is the rent control ordinance that stopped new apartment building for a decade and keeps thousands of units vacant today.