I haven't worked in residential property in about 7 years now, so I haven't kept up with it. But my point was, just like the article stated, most people think rent increases are a result of greedy landlords. In NYC at least, that has not been my experience. I've worked for many landlords, managing large and small residential properties for 15 years. Now I understand this is NYC, where costs are high all around. But I did not manage a single piece of residential property that had a net positive rental income in NYC. Breaking even really was best case scenario for any residential property owner in NYC. Out of pocket overhead month to month was quite common. I suspect Seattle should be very much the same in this regard.
Now why would anyone still own property in these high cost urban areas? There's 2 main reasons, tax write offs for losses, and refinancing for access to property equity. The tax write off for losses, is what's most relevant to increasing rents. If the loss amount exceeds what income the owner has left to write off after all other deductions, then the only choice is to raise rents. Now if you look at private sector overhead costs of owning property (physical maintenance), cost increases are very gradual, except for emergency repairs (pipes bursting, etc). Even then such unexpected large expenditures, are usually insured, and will be covered despite paying out of pocket initially. On the other hand, government associated overhead costs (water, sewer, property taxes etc), are subject to sudden large increases, on income/expense sheets that have already been operating in the red. This is the primary driver of rent increases IME. So in a nutshell, government blaming high rents for homelessness, but high rents are caused by government.
On another note, I've heard WA state has passed rent control on all residential rentals. I've had a lot of experience managing, and owning rent controlled properties in NYC. That's a whole host of other issues for another discussion.
