Tied to immigration levels, more cheap labor, more labor competition, wages go down. Immigrants willing to live 2 to a bedroom, rise in rent prices.
If the paper came from Academia, it already went through lots of political allegiance filters, and taboo topics like being critical of immigration. Article debunks itself, when source can't be trusted.
Personally I'm pretty sure it's more about the value of property and the limitations on construction that wealthy property owners put in place to block development (which would lower property values.) Property values go up -> costs rise (taxes, insurance) -> rent increases. That and the fact that the government and corporate america (same thing really) want all development to happen within existing major metro areas. There's plenty of cities and towns with cheap housing, but they lack employment opportunities.