I own no rental properties and have long been a tenant myself.
The main driver of high rents is simple supply and demand. If you have lots of people who need to rent apartments, and only a few apartments then prices will rise.
The solution to high rents is to build lots more apartments… Then landlords have to compete on price and the average rents will come way down.
If you try to keep rents down artificially with rent control, then you discourage developers from building new apartments. The result of this is homelessness even for those who could afford it.