(Archived document, may contain errors) I 685 January 12,1989 I A1MEJRIcAS HOlVIFUSS VICIIMS OF RENT CONTROL INTRODUCTION Americas housing situa tion poses a strange paradox. Overall, Americans have never been better housed. The rental vacancy rates for 1987 stood at 8.5 percent, the highest in two decades. More than 60 percent of Americans live in their own homes. And as Rutgers University schola rs George Sterdieb and James W. Hughes of the Center of Urban Policy Research point out there is now one bedroom for every American.