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  • Comment Detail

  • Date: 06/07/23
    First Name: Joan
    Last Name: Friedman
    Email: joan.friedman@zoho.com
    Organization Type: other
    Organization: Homes Guarantee Campaign

  • Comment

    My name is Joan and I am a former tenant living in Waltham, MA. My grown daughter would be a tenant, but she is living at home because she can't afford rent on her income as a hair stylist. I am a member of the Homes Guarantee Campaign.

    Over the years, I have watched as housing costs go up and up and up, while developers and predatory investors buy up housing stock and profit from others' distress. It is wrong. The government should do something about it.

    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.