Your suggestion is only treating a symptom. Let’s look at the reasons landlords can get away with charging so much to begin with and go from there.
Obviously, supply is too low and/or demand is too high. Why is this?
Supply: too much red tape on construction. Getting a new house built is too expensive because of administrative costs. Because building any housing is expensive, new construction focuses on $500,000 McMansions, and the prices on starter homes remain high.
Demand: the massive influx of illegal aliens has seen overall demand increase. To make things worse, many illegals are willing to pack in like sardines and split high rents amongst more people. Plus, there have even been government subsidies on housing for illegals.
Market Manipulation: private equity firms like Blackrock, Vanguard, and Blackstone buy up relatively cheap properties with reasonable rents and withhold some of the units so rent prices increase. When they do this, they pretend that the property has become more valuable because they cost more to rent, thus fooling their investors into thinking they made money.
The supply-side solution is obvious, do whatever you can to simplify building codes. Releasing some federal land for privatization would be nice as well; imagine a neo-homesteader act.
On the demand-side, we need to deport the illegal aliens, simple as.
I don’t have a perfect solution to private equity buying all the housing, but I’m sure there are others on this forum who have a pretty good idea.
Make housing affordable again!