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My name is Jeremiah, and I am a tenant living in Louisville, Kentucky. I am a member of the Homes Guarantee Campaign.

Last year, my landlord raised my rent from $795 to $875 per month. This raised my rent to the point where if I were to miss two weeks of work due to illness or an injury, I wouldn’t be able to afford rent that month. This means I am spending close to half of my income on housing every month. If I were to be evicted and forced to find somewhere else to live, my situation would only get worse as the surrounding apartments average $1164 per month. I am tired of half of my paycheck being taken from me just so I can have a bedroom and bathroom my landlord refuses to fulfill maintenance requests for, despite the financial assistance he is receiving with Fannie Mae dollars.

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,
Jeremiah