State governments are the primary culprits causing increases in rents. When government allows (by law) renters to remain in their unit for many months while NOT paying rent (for whatever contrived reason) it causes rents to go up. Take away all those laws and allow easy evictions for non-payment and you'll see rents come down. If landlords are handcuffed on evictions then rents go up (gotta cover those losses) and they even leave properties vacant for longer and are unwilling to take a chance on dinged credit applicants. But if they allow easy evictions for non-payment then landlords will be much more forgiving on tarnished credit applicants. Non-payment is the primary reason for evictions.

Edit: Section 8 also causes high rents as it then becomes the "floor" for rent prices and go up from there.