Rent increases are terrible for renters (and I rent), but great for homeowners (in that they generally track rising real-estate values.) It's mostly just a matter of perspective.
Nobody seems to complain that the housing market in SF is on fire for the same reasons that rents are up.
It's not just SF... a lot of people complain about the Bay Area housing market in general - just not the sellers.
Even if you can afford to buy a house, it's damn near impossible to find one because sellers are getting many offers on the first day/week (a lot of which are in cash). And a lot of these offers aren't from homeowners, but rather investment companies. There was a good article in the SJ Mercury News last month about it [1]. Even if you want a house (and can afford one), the market just doesn't have enough supply, so people are then stuck renting. It really is a pretty big problem.
It's probably because homeowners are (almost always) voters in a district, whereas potential home buyers probably aren't, and renters are somewhat less likely to be than homeowners. You'd expect policies designed to keep homeowners happy.
