This question has to do with downward and upward sloping demand
curves.  I am not too familiar with economics and after reading my
available materials, I am still not clear on the answers to the
following questions:  If the government was to establish a rent
ceiling below the equilibrium level what would happen to the quantity
o housing consumed? Will there be a rental suplus or shortage and who
will gain/lose from rent control?

I am interested in any online sites that may help me better understand
these questions also.

Hello boobee-ga,

The comment by vballguy-ga is basically on the right track.  However,
you may find it helpful to see a few explanations with charts, and for
me to summarize these explanations.

These explanations show that if the government establishes a rent
ceiling below the equilibrium level, the quantity of housing would
decrease.  The decrease would be less (or perhaps nothing) in the
short term -- since the supply of housing of housing is relatively
inelastic in the short term -- and greater in the long term.  In sum,
there would be a rental shortage, at least in the long term.  Rent
control would hurt the poor, because landlords would prefer to rent to
the middle class people who are competing for the same apartments, and
would hurt landlords, who cannot rent at the equilibrium price.  The
middle class persons who get the apartments would gain.

"Chapter 7 -- Demand and Supply Applications" [pages 1-3]
College of Business Administration
Marquette University
http://classwork.busadm.mu.edu/classwork/ECON43JM/CH07.doc

"Lecture 6: Demand and Supply Equilibrium" [page 4]
Philip G. King, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Economics
San Francisco State University
http://online.sfsu.edu/~pgking/macropdfs/dseq.pdf

"Chapter 6: Supply, Demand and Government Policies" [page 2]
ECON 2106: Principles of Microeconomics
University of Georgia
http://www.arches.uga.edu/~cowgill/_pdf/nine.pdf

"Supply, Demand and Government Policies - Chapter 6" [page 2-3]
Henry W. Chapell, Moore School of Business
University of South Carolina
http://dmsweb.badm.sc.edu/chappell/Econ224/powerpoint/Chap06.pdf

A caveat -- many people support rent control despite this standard
economics perspective.  This answer addresses the economic viewpoint,
not the political arguments for or against particular rent control
policies.

- justaskscott-ga


I used various combinations of the following terms on Google:

"rent control"
supply
demand
equilibrium
shortage
elastic
inelastic
"short term"
"long term"
"hurt the poor"
"hurts the poor"

In order to answer the question, lets take a look at a few things
first.

Demand represents the number of people that want to rent an apartment.
Supply represents the number of apartments that are available to rent.

If you graph the two where one is the x coridnate and the other is the
y cordinate, where they meet is called the equalibrium point.  This is
the
point at which all apartments are rented but there are no additional
people
willing to rent an appartment at that price.  

You can think of equilibrium as the point at which if you raise the
price your supply will be greater than the demand at that price.  This
is called a surplus.

If you lower your price from the equalibrium, the demand will be
greater than the supply.  This is called a shortage.

With that said, if the Gov steps in and sets price limits below the
equalibrium, there will be a shortage.  There will be more people that
want apartments than there will be available apartments.

Think of it this way, if you lower prices, there is more of a demand.

Who gets hurt. 
First off the landlords are now getting less money to rent their
apartments.
(the second group might not be part of your answer)
The second group that could get hurt are the people that are willing
to pay more for an apartment but can not get one due to the shortage

The people who benifit are the tennants who pay less for the
apartment.


I do not have links, but I am sure the person who officially answers
will provide some.