Comment Detail

Comment

My name is Greg and I am a tenant living in Louisville, KY. I am a member of the Homes Guarantee Campaign.
Since 2019, my rent has doubled. I’ve maintained a full time job the entire time and even with wages increasing and transitioning into office/professional work, I’m now paying the largest portion of my income in rent in my life. Last year when I moved, I had to pay a 50$ late fee. I skipped meals and stopped driving for months to catch back up. That’s not right.
The rent is too damn high. The Federal Housing Finance Agency should protect tenants by limiting annual rent hikes to 1.5 times the Consumer Price Index or 3%, whichever is lower, in properties with federally backed mortgages. These limits should be applied universally as a requirement to all federally backed mortgage programs.
In addition to limits on rent hikes, the FHFA should prohibit evictions without good cause, ban source of income discrimination, enforce and expand existing protections against discrimination, require safe and accessible housing conditions, create a landlord registry, require fair and standardized leases, ensure tenants have the right to organize, and create an Office of Tenant Protections to enforce these rights in all properties with federally backed mortgages.
Sincerely,
Greg