A market can be broken through the actions of private actors too. Monopolies and other anti-competitive organizations, criminals, poorly educated market participants, externalities not properly accounted for, etc can “break” a market. In this case a large number of voters seem to believe that rents should not increase even if demand vastly outstrips supply, forcing the government to create short-sighted policies to try to appease them.
Sure markets can be affected by private actors, but I still think "broken" isn't a helpful way to think about market conditions. High and low prices are examples of the market working exactly as needed by signaling that there is un-met demand (high prices) or mis-allocated resources (low prices).
